


Only If for a Night

by MsBrightsideSH



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Inception (2010) - Freeform, Inception Reverse Big Bang Challenge, Suicide, This is really dark, but hey, more Inception femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 20:32:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8548192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsBrightsideSH/pseuds/MsBrightsideSH
Summary: Ariadne isn’t sure how it started. No, she isn’t sure that it started at all. Mal has always been a constant in her life. That smoky voice, curling around the words, stroking them as she speaks, is her earliest memory.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Inception Reverse Bang, inspired by kateison's stunning art.  
> This story was quite a challenge, but also a joy to write. Couldn't have done it without kate_the_reader, the best beta in all the lands <3  
> I really hope you guys like it, but it really is quite dark, so heed the warnings!

_Ma chère. How I’ve missed you._

  


Ariadne isn’t sure how it started. No, she isn’t sure that it started at all. Mal has always been a constant in her life. That smoky voice, curling around the words, stroking them as she speaks, is her earliest memory.

 

 

 

 

 

  


It didn’t occur to Ari that she was different, that having a best friend who you could only meet when you were asleep was not perfectly normal.

  


She came into the kitchen one day to find Mom sitting at the table, crying into a cup of coffee.

Ari had learned in Kindergarten that it was important to comfort people when they were sad, so she shyly approached the table. She couldn’t remember ever having seen Mom cry before.

It looked different from when Tommy or Lucy or one of the other kids were wailing over a broken toy or because someone had pulled their hair. Mom’s crying was all silent. It looked funny, like watching the TV with the sound switched off.

Ari carefully touched Mom’s knee, because Mom was sitting on one of the high chairs and Ari couldn’t reach much further up.

“Hello, cookie,” Mom said, and it sounded wrong, it sounded all wrong, like when Jonas had had something wrong with his throat in January and could only croak for a week.

“Mommy,” Ari said, and her own voice sounded different, small and quiet where she usually laughed and shouted. “Why are you sad?”

She could finally say ‘sad’ the right way, without the lisp that had made her so angry. She and Mal had practised every night, until Ari could say it just like her.

“Oh sweetie,” Mom said, and picked her up, which was nice, because no one except for Mal picked her up these days.

“Mommy has been … fighting with some people,” Mom said. Ari was used to the pauses when her mom spoke with her, like she was looking for the word that Ari could understand easiest. Mal never did that, she just talked and Ari would understand her anyway, or ask.

Of course, Mom never had as much time for Ari as Mal did.

“It’s not always easy, to be a grown up,” Mom continued. Ari didn’t know what to say, so she touched Mom’s cheek, because you were supposed to wipe away the tears when someone was crying. Mom smiled, so it had to be true.

“I just wish I had someone to talk to, another grown up,” Mom sighed.

“Daddy?” Ari suggested, because that seemed to be what someone who you were married to was for. Her teacher had said you married someone who you loved even more than your best friend. “Oh, he’s very busy, Ari,” Mom said, and she had already stopped looking at Ari, which meant she was somewhere else, in her head.

Ari, however, would not be discouraged this easily. “Talk to your Mal, then,” she said confidently, because for her, talking to Mal was always an easy solution.

“My Mal?” Mom asked, like she didn’t know what Ari was talking about, which wasn’t fair, because Ari had told her lots of stories about Mal.

“Your Mal,” Ari repeated, wriggling around impatiently. Mom was still confused, Ari could see that, so she thought of a thing Mal had told her once.

“Your dream friend, who visits you at night and will always listen,” she quoted, proud of herself for remembering. Mom looked at her with the smile she always smiled when she thought Ari was being very cute. Ari usually liked that look, but today, it felt wrong.

“Oh sweetie, I’m too old for an imaginary friend,” Mom said gently, putting Ari back down on the floor.

“So … you don’t have a Mal?” Ari asked, and she felt very, very cold suddenly, even though the sun was shining in through the window.

“No cookie, grownups don’t have friends who visit them in their dreams,” Mom said, still smiling as if that wasn’t the most horrible thing anyone had ever told Ari. “You won’t either, soon.”

Ari could feel tears in her eyes, and turned away. “I’ll go play,” she said, running to her room.

She threw herself on the bed, crying into her pillow until she fell asleep from exhaustion.

Her eyes opened slowly to see Mal sitting there.

“Ariadne,” she said immediately, jumping up to hug her. Ari noticed that she was still crying, even in the dream, so she hid her face in Mal’s tummy, breathing in her comforting smell.

“Shh,” Mal soothed, stroking Ari’s hair. She waited until Ari had stopped crying and was only hiccoughing weakly, then she crouched down in front of her.

“What happened, _chérie_?” she asked, Ari hiccoughed a bit more, and Mal waited patiently.

“My mom,” Ari started eventually, wiping at her eyes. “She said you’ll leave me, when I grow up. You’ll be gone.”

She started crying again and Mal pulled her into her lap, gently rocking.

“ _Chérie_ , Ariadne, I will never leave you,” she said, quiet, certain. “You and I, we belong together.”

“Promise?” Ari asked, looking up at her best friend. Mal looked right back. “Promise.”

  


******

Ariadne couldn't sleep. That was quite unusual for her. Her mom was very pleased that she usually was such a good sleeper, Ari knew that. She told other moms whose kids wanted to stay up watching TV how well-behaved Ari was in the evening. Ari had finally had the nerve to explain to her yesterday that it was to meet Mal, that she only liked going to bed early because she could meet her friend, then.  

Her mom hadn't said anything to that, just shaken her head and told Ari to go do her homework. Ari sighed and swung her legs out of bed. Maybe a glass of water would help. She quietly opened the door of her room and slipped into the hallway. To her surprise, she could see light in the kitchen. Curious, she went to the top of the stairs. Her parents were arguing about something. Carefully, Ari set a foot on the first step. When nothing creaked, she slipped down further, until she was halfway to the bottom. She could see her dad's face through the kitchen door, which stood half open.

“Ariadne said _what_?” he was asking, loudly. Ari's tummy clenched. They were talking about her.

“I told you, Richard,” her mom said, just as loud, sounding exasperated. “I praised her for being a good girl, for always going to bed early and without making a fuss. Look at the Goodmans' boy, sneaking downstairs to watch TV when everyone else has gone to bed.” Dad made a motion with his hand, impatient. “Anyway, I praised her and she told me that she was going to bed early to meet with her friend. Her best friend, she said.”

“Yes, but what the hell did she mean by that?”

“Richard, don't curse, please.”

Dad breathed heavily, but Ari could see him nod.

“That's exactly what I asked her,” Mom continued. “She _looked_ at me, like I should know. She said something like, 'My dream friend, Mom, I've told you about her.'”

“Her dream friend,” Dad repeated. His brow was furrowed. “What did you say, then?”

“ _Nothing_ ,” Ari's mom replied, like that should have been obvious. “I told her to go do her homework. But this is worrying me.” Ari could see her dad nodding again, thoughtful now.

“She always had an … active imagination, but she's nine years old, now,” Mom said, quieter. Ari had to strain her ears to hear.

“Maybe this is my fault.”

“Bullshit,” her dad said, then immediately raised his hands in apology. “We'll have a closer look at her, from now on. We'll make sure her imagination doesn't run away from her, further. If she tells you about this again, tell me immediately. I'll figure something out.”

Ari thought she heard something like finality in his voice and scrambled up the stairs as quickly as she could while still trying to make as little noise as possible. She'd forgotten all about the water, and by the time she was back under the covers, she didn't want to get up again. She could hear her parents getting ready for bed, not talking now, just shuffling around.

She tried to block out the sounds, tried to go to sleep so she could go and tell Mal, but it wouldn't happen. Ari had no idea what exactly her father would do, if he found out that Ari's best friend would _always_ be someone she could only visit in her sleep.

Lying in the dark, staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars she had pinned to her ceiling, she could almost hear Dad's voice again, the way he'd said, “I'll figure something out.” Ari had absolutely no idea what that something was supposed to be, how you could keep someone from dreaming their dreams when they were asleep. She didn't quite understand how her parents could fault her for this, either. Who could control their dreams when they were sleeping, after all?

Her dad had sounded very certain, though. If he said he'd think of something, Ari didn't doubt that he would, somehow. The thought of losing Mal struck her, suddenly, and she felt like the dark was smothering her, like she could neither breathe nor see. _Losing Mal_ , she told herself, _can't happen._ Mal had promised her, again and again, that they would always be together, after all. She wouldn't leave her if she could help it. _I have to be that strong_ , Ari decided, fists clenching by her sides, as if getting ready for a real fight. _I'll be that strong for her. I can promise her, too_. Knowing this felt good, calmed her. She might have to lie to her parents, she realized, uncomfortable again for a second. _Mal is more important. We have to be together._

Ari felt that she had made a decision, and it felt good. It was the right decision, she was sure.

Finally, finally, she was slipping into sleep.

  


****

“Ariadne, you're being very quiet today, _chérie_.” Ari looked up to see Mal's eyes very close to her face, big and concerned. “You were so excited for today, _non_?”

Ari shrugged, leaned against the wall, played with the frayed hem of her pajama top.

“It was ok, I guess.”

“ _Mais_ Ariadne, it was the first day at your new school!”

“Yeah, I know,” Ari mumbled, down to her knees. “I don't want to talk about it.”

She knew that Mal's eyes on her had probably just gotten bigger, wouldn't blink and that Mal would be silent until Ari told her what was wrong. She was of half a mind to just stay silent, to wait this dream out, to just sit here and sulk, but of course, she couldn't stand it for very long.

“It's just … this is going to be my school until graduation, you know? I'll be there for the next _years_ , and I hate it already.”

Mal held up a hand, stopping her. “ _Pardon, chérie_ , but I don't understand. I thought after this comes high school still?”

“No, my mom and dad thought it would be better if I went to a combined kind of school. You start when you're 12, then stay there until you're done.” Her parents had gone on and on about continuity, about how good it would be for Ariadne, how it was a wonderful school, how she could make friends now and graduate with them, too. Eventually, Ari had agreed. She had known that her parents would win this, anyway. They always did.

“So, what is the problem?” Mal asked, gently touching Ari's arm.

“A few boys were kind of mean,” Ari admitted, down to her knees again. “Because I'm so small.”

“Oh,” Mal said, and Ari kind of expected to be hugged, to be coddled, but after a few seconds she realized that Mal was _laughing_.

“What's so funny?” she asked, getting a little angry.

“ _Rien_ , my dear, nothing,” Mal said, belying her words by still chuckling softly.

“It's not easy, ok?” Ari said, loudly now. “I'll always be this tiny, the doctor said so, I'll never be tall and elegant like ...” _you_ , she didn't say. Mal, being Mal, had heard it anyway.

“Ariadne,” she said, earnest now. “Who cares how tall you will be? You are fierce and curious and _wonderful_. In a few years’ time, no one will even notice your height, if you don't want them to.”

“You think so?” Ari asked, half sulking, half hopeful.

“ _Oui_ ,” Mal said, firm and decisive.

Ari felt flattered, but Mal was her friend, her best friend in the world, she _had_ to say these things, Ari supposed. Mal sighed, then took her hand. “Come on. I'll show you something.”

Taking the offered hand, Ari followed Mal off the bed. They always met in Ari's bedroom, and Ari had never questioned that at all, had never even _thought_ to question it, but Mal was going straight for the door. Ari stopped dead.

“Mal, wait, what if my parents are out there?”

Mal glanced over her shoulder, amused. “Do you want them to be out there?”

“What? No, of course not. But it's our house, it would make sense for them to be there ...” Ari trailed off when she saw Mal's smile, knowing and mischievous.

“Out there,” Mal said, and reached for the door handle, “can be anywhere you want it to be.”

She opened the door carefully and Ariadne, still kind of expecting their hallway with her pictures on the wall and the worn-out carpet covering the floor, gasped involuntarily when she saw a little street, cobbled, and small, whitewashed houses lining it.

“How did you do that?” she asked excitedly, letting Mal pull her out the door and into the street.

“Wait, Mal, I'm still wearing my pajamas!” There was no one around, but Ari still felt exposed.

“Oh, we must fix that _tout de suite_!”

Ari saw Mal close her eyes and suddenly, they were both wearing different clothes. Mal, a flowing summer dress and Ari shorts and a tank top and the sneakers she'd been asking for for _months._

“How did you — Did _you_ do that?”

Mal nodded, looking as excited as Ari felt.

“It's good, _non_? Look here—” She made a flourishing motion with her hand, and suddenly, the houses weren't white anymore, but sky blue with flowers and even tiny trees growing out the windows.

“That's fantastic,” Ari exclaimed. “Can only you do it? Can I try?”

“Of course you can try,” Mal said, changing the houses back to white and turning to face Ariadne.

“What would you like to change? It will help to tell me, to say it out loud.”

Ari thought for a moment. “I'd like to turn the cobble stones to sand,” she decided. “What do I do?”

“Close your eyes,” Mal instructed. “Then concentrate on what you want to do. Don't force it, just … let it move through you. It will be easy, once you know how it feels.”

Ari closed her eyes obediently and tried to think of warm sand beneath her feet, of burying her toes in it. After a few seconds, she felt … something, so she opened her eyes, expectant. The street was still cobbled, and she huffed, disappointed, but Mal made a little sound. “Ariadne, look!”

She pointed at Ari's feet. Ari looked down and saw that the fronts of her sneakers were gone, her toes wriggling in the air. “That's very good already!” Mal said, sounding impressed.

“Yeah?” Ari asked, starting to feel pleased. “Yes,” Mal said.

“How do you know all this?” Ari asked. “Why didn't you show me sooner?”

“My father,” Mal said, took Ari's hand and started to walk down the street with her. “He studies dreams.”

“You can _study_ dreams?”

“In Paris you can, if you know where,” Mal said, with a twinkle in her eyes. “But my father does it mostly privately. He's a professor for architecture, mostly, though. A good one, too. If you have studied under Miles, you have good chances to get a job in the city.”

“Did he show you how to … how to dream like that?”

“When he came home this summer, yes. He has a device, they call it PASIV. You can dream anything you like with it. But I thought, our dreams, we always _know_ we're dreaming, _non_? So why shouldn't we be able to change them as well?”

Ari smiled, pressing Mal's hand affectionately. “So you experimented?”

“ _Naturalement_ ,” Mal said, that mischievous smile back on her lips. “I wanted to be good before I showed you. Now you can learn, and then we can conquer the world, you and I.”

Ari looked up at her friend, knowing that their sparkling eyes matched each other.

“Yeah,” she said. “Show me everything.”

****

 

  


“...he’s really tall and his eyes are _so_ blue and Becca says he’s the best looking guy in the whole class!” Ariadne breathed in deeply, feeling the excited flush in her cheeks, looking up at Mal expectantly.

Mal was … smiling, yes, but something was wrong. They’d met on the meadow today, the one they had made together. It was one of Ari’s favorite dream places, normally. She could look around and see herself and Mal in every flower, every tree. Today, the grass seemed bristly though, and a wind was chasing clouds over the sky.

“So, did you like this Toby before he asked you out?” Mal asked, and her voice wasn’t playful and teasing, like Ari would have expected.

“Well, I didn’t really notice him, but I like him now!” Ari exclaimed.

“Hm,” Mal said, a small, non-committal sound, not even a word really. Ari felt the grin slip off her face slowly.

“I like him,” she repeated, confused by and disappointed in Mal’s lack of response.

Mal seemed to notice her face falling, because she touched Ari’s arm slightly and gave her a real smile. “What did you plan for this date?”

“He said he’d pick me up at seven tomorrow, and we’ll have pizza and see a movie!” _I went to bed extra early to tell you_ , she didn’t add, but Mal seemed to know anyway, because the hand still lying on her arm slid up to her face and her fingertips brushed her cheek, the touch light as a feather, there and gone again in the blink of an eye.

“That sounds like a good first date, _non_?” Mal said.

Ari nodded and let herself fall back onto the grass, which felt soft and lush once again. They were silent for a little while, comfortably so, Mal playing with Ari’s hair and Ari lost in her own thoughts.

“Do you think he’ll try to kiss me?” she asked abruptly, before she could lose her nerve.

Mal raised an eyebrow slowly, smirking. “Do you want him to?”

Ari blushed. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I bet he will. Everyone at school is kissing as well, now.”

“You don’t have to do something simply because _tout le monde_ is doing it,” Mal reminded her gently. This was another thing Ari liked about Mal: Even though she was much older than her, she would never look down at Ari’s inexperience. Had she had this conversation with her mom, the ‘just because everyone else is doing it’ would have been said with a sneer, to remind Ariadne how young she was and how little she knew. Mal said it earnestly.

Ari nodded.

“I know that, but I think I want to try it,” she said slowly. “I’m just scared that I might do it wrong.” The last words she said quietly, down to her knees. No matter how close they were, no matter that Mal didn’t let her feel it, no matter that they had known each other literally forever, sometimes she was still acutely aware that Mal was elegant and beautiful and 27 and Ari was _tiny_ and had a baby face that made her look even younger than her 15 years.

A hand tilted up her chin and beautiful, blue eyes looked right into hers.

“I don’t believe that for one second, _chérie_ ,” Mal said, firmly.

“How can you be _sure_ though?” Ari asked, a bit desperately.

“Because you are my princess, and you are wonderful,” Mal said, matter of fact, as if no one of a sound mind could possibly deny this.

“Do you really think so?” Ari asked, aware that her need for confirmation was getting annoying.

“Yes,” Mal said, entirely certain. Then, she gently poked Ari in the stomach.

“If you want, we can practise though, since you are so unsure.”

For a second, Ari wasn’t sure whether she had misheard. She stared up at the sky, not looking at Mal, taking deep, calming breaths. “Are you serious?” she asked, eventually, still not looking at anything but the clouds swirling above. Mal laughed, silver-bright, and Ari’s eyes flitted to her instantly, drawn by the undeniable force that _was_ Mal.

“Ariadne, of course I am sure. Friends help each other, _non_?”

“Yes,” Ari heard herself say. Mal’s inviting little smile turned into something wider, sharper.

It didn’t do anything to discourage Ari. She sat up carefully, not liking the idea of lying there passively. It was her, after all, who needed practise in kissing, not Mal. Mal seemed to sense this, because she remained still while Ari arranged them sitting next to each other in the grass, their heads turned enough to keep their gazes locked.

“Like this?” Ari asked in a half whisper, self-consciously sliding her hand into the nape of Mal’s neck. She felt the silky strands glide through her fingers and involuntarily felt a little pang in thinking that she’d miss that with Toby. She pushed the thought firmly aside and concentrated on the stormy blue eyes in front of her. Mal’s fingers rested lightly on Ari’s shoulders and even though she was wearing a jumper, Ari was sure that she could feel the warmth of each tip on her skin. She breathed in deeply, then slowly and deliberately closed her eyes and leaned forward that much more.

The first contact of lips wasn’t like lightning or electricity or whatever else her classmates had suggested. It was warm and gentle and so, so soft. Ari felt curious, like she was melting, or floating. Her hand kept stroking along Mal’s neck, the other one coming up to cup her face. Mal’s hands traveled upwards from her shoulders to lock in Ari’s neck, urging her closer.

Ari breathed in, automatically opening her mouth a bit. She felt the tip of Mal’s tongue against her own, a tiny, barely there touch. Mal repeated this a few times until Ari’s tongue followed her, dipping into Mal’s mouth.

Ari started to lose track of time. Mal’s perfume, usually just a gentle whiff that lay over most of her dreamscapes, essentially unnoticed, was all she could smell now, flowery and heady.

Both their hands were buried in the other’s hair and Mal had basically pulled Ari into her lap, shifting against her until they were pressed impossibly close.

For the first time in a long time, Ari didn’t notice the end of a dream, didn’t notice that tell-tale fading of color and smells until she was suddenly lying in her bed wide awake, gasping for breath with her alarm beeping away.

 

 

 

  


“How was it with Becca?” Mom asked when Ari came home after her date. Ari didn't like the way she looked at her, scrutinizing, suspicious.

“It was good,” she said, not mumbling and looking to the floor, as good as any guilt admission, but not speaking too loudly either. You only looked someone straight in the eye if you had to prove something, if you needed to convince them that what you were saying was true. Lying was another thing she had practised with Mal, night after night, just in case her parents would ask about her dreams.

Her mom looked at her for a few seconds longer, until Ari sighed exasperatedly.

“It was a good movie, but I'm really tired, ok? Can I go upstairs?”

After one moment of hesitation, a nod. “Alright. Sleep well, sweetie.”

Ari smiled, gave her a quick kiss and went upstairs, making sure not to walk too quickly, although she wanted to _run_.

She was bursting to tell Mal all about her date.

Once she had changed and brushed her teeth in record time, she slipped under the covers.

Ari had known how to make herself fall asleep since she'd been very young. These days, it came as easily to her as breathing, lying down and letting go, eyes closing of their own accord.

When she opened her eyes again, she was in the dream, on their meadow.

Mal wasn't there yet, so Ariadne busied herself with making everything as pretty as possible. She'd been practising for years, and even though she still had to try harder than Mal did, she had become very good at changing the dream. Mal was able to dream them into a whole new scenario, ready and real, within the blink of an eye. Ari had more difficulties with that, and even though she could dream up new spaces now, it took her a while to familiarize herself with them, to be able to manipulate them into looking the way she wished.

This space, however, she knew as well as her own room, and in no time at all, the grass was dotted with clusters of young clover and the cherry trees were blossoming.

Ari was just about to add some daisies to the picture when suddenly, Mal was there.

“Ariadne, my dear. How was it?”

To Ari's surprise, Mal looked almost … pitying. She found herself wrapped in in what felt above all like a comforting embrace before she could answer. “It was nice.”

Mal froze mid-movement. “Nice?”

“Yeah, _Pirates of the Caribbean_ was hilarious and exciting and he was really sweet. We went to the early showing, so he could buy me pizza later without my mom getting suspicious. He even held my hand during the movie!”

Ari grinned at Mal, expecting for her pitying expression to change, and it did.

Not into the delight Ari had expected, though. Mal's face turned strangely blank, as if shutters behind her eyes had closed. If Ari was honest, that wasn't a look she'd even thought Mal capable of.

Mal's face _always_ showed what she was feeling, sadness or anger or happiness evident in the twinkle of her eye, her brow furrowing, the corners of her mouth lifting or turning downwards.

“Mal?” Ari asked, careful now, the heady feeling from before leaving her rapidly.

The sky had changed into a strangely colorless grey, but whether this was her or Mal's doing, Ari couldn't tell.

“That sounds lovely,” Mal said, not sounding like Mal at all, but hollow, insincere, cool.

Ari frowned. “Mal, what's going on?”

“Whatever do you mean, _chérie_?” Even the pet name sounded wrong.

“Why, um, why don't we talk about what is going on with you?” Ari suggested. Of course she'd been hoping to tell Mal all about her date night, what it had been like to hold hands with someone in public, feeling like everyone looked at you and envied you. It wasn't exactly something Ari had a lot of experience with, although she suspected that Mal probably did.

“What about this Dominic Cobb person, for example? Is he still bothering you?”

Mal didn't talk about her life often in their dreams, not the way Ari did, but she remembered being told about some annoying pretty boy who wouldn't leave Mal alone. Mal didn't frown her 'people-can-be-such-a-nuisance' frown though, and she didn't launch into a lengthy rant about how tedious it was to have someone follow you around all the time with “pathetic puppy-dog eyes”, either.

No, Mal smiled, twisted and with just her mouth, not her eyes.

“Oh, Dom. He's lovely, I should call him. It's still early, _non_? I'll do it straight away.”

Without even saying goodbye, Mal vanished. Ari stared at the spot where her friend had just sat, uncomprehending. Mal very seldomly woke herself up like that, and she never did it without a good reason. Feeling slightly nauseous, but not seeing what else she could do, Ariadne stretched out on the grass and thought of nothing until different dreams pulled her down deeper.

  


At school the next day, Ari tried to not let it show how worried and sad she was. She told Becca all about her date and Becca reacted exactly right, smiling and even whooping when Ari mentioned the handholding. Her mood improved further when Toby dropped by her classroom during break and gave her a little chocolate heart before disappearing again, his face several shades redder than before. Ari simply couldn't imagine what was going on with Mal, but the day had been so encouraging that she hoped that night would be different. Surely, Mal had been distracted by something, had had something on her mind and later, she would tell her and they would be fine.

They could deal with Mal's problem first and later, Ari would actually tell her about Toby and Mal would be as impressed as she had hoped for. Ari was so convinced of this that once more, she went to bed early. Same as the night before, she arrived on the meadow with Mal not there. Same as the night before, she busied herself decorating. Not quite as on the nose this time, she decided, exchanging cherry blossoms for simple green leaves and making sure the clear blue sky was spotted with a few puffy clouds. When Ari was satisfied, she sat down to wait. She waited and waited. The sky above her changed from early morning light to noon. When the shadows started lengthening again, she realized that Mal wouldn't be coming. She sighed, unsure of what to do. This didn't feel right. She wanted to talk to Mal, wanted to make sure that they were ok, but she had no means of calling Mal into the dream. She tried anyway, lay on her back again, stared at nothing and tried with all of her mind to get Mal, to _feel_ her somehow, to reach her. It was exhausting and when Ari was woken by her alarm clock, she felt drained despite having slept for nine hours.

  


The next nights were much the same, and people started to notice that Ari was getting quieter and paler.

“Ari, what's going on?” Becca asked on Friday, actually looking earnest. Ari didn't think that she'd ever seen her without her characteristic, mischievous smile. “Nothing, just, um, fighting with my mom,” Ari said quickly. Becca's mom was a terror, so that was something she could understand.

Becca nodded sympathetically, just as expected. “You can always come to mine if it gets too much, yeah?”

“Thanks Becca,” Ari said, smiling for the first time in days.

_Time to pull myself together_ she told herself sternly. If Becca was worried, it wouldn't take long for her parents to notice, and somehow, Ari didn't want to risk them prodding for the source of why she was feeling down lately. She gave her best to be more cheerful in the afternoon, coming with her mom to do the weekly shopping and helping her dad cook dinner in the evening. She even sat down to watch a movie with them, drawing out the inevitable moment  when she'd have to go to sleep.

When she couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, reading in her bed after her parents had said good night, she sighed and closed her eyes.

“Ariadne! I have been waiting!”

“Mal? Mal!” without thinking about it, Ari flung herself at Mal, and Mal caught her, even twirling her once like she had done when Ari had been little.

“Mal -” _where have you been_ , Ari wanted to ask, but something about Mal's expression made her change her mind. “I've missed you,” she said instead, which was also true.

“As I have missed you, _chérie._ ”

Mal looked like Mal again, mostly, and even though Ari still felt a certain sense of reservedness, she was so happy to have her friend back that she could have cried.

She was certain, somehow, that bringing Toby up would be a bad idea, so she didn't say anything at all. Having Mal was … more important. Keeping Mal happy was important. Ari knew that now.

 

  


They didn't talk about Toby anymore. Mal didn't ask and Ari never mentioned him.

Other things were much more interesting anyway. Mal offhandedly told her about Dom sometimes, but Ari had decided to be supportive. Mal had been there for her for years and years, had let Ari cry on her shoulder, supported her, taught her a good many things no one else would have taught her.

It was time that Ari gave something back. She did get jealous, a little, especially when Mal announced, after just a few months, that she was getting married.

“Not to worry, Ariadne,” Mal had said with that silver-bright laugh of hers that Ari loved so much.

“My nights still belong to you,” she'd added with a wink and Ari had felt a strange shudder go through herself, at the half-said implication. If Mal had noticed it, she hadn't said.

Since she didn't have Mal for it, Becca had to listen to Ari talk about Toby. It was the first time that someone outside her dreams was entrusted with her real feelings, and Ari found it strange for a while, but Becca made it easy, giving her advice that lacked maturity, often not getting the point at all. It was fun, but very clearly no competition for Mal, which allowed Ari to feel a bit more at ease.

“Soo, have you done it yet?” Becca asked her one morning, whispering conspiratorially. Ari tried to look blank, even though she knew exactly what Becca was talking about. “What?”

“Oh come on, you know _exactly_ what I mean.” Becca grinned at her. “If I could just get Adrian to notice me, we'd be doing it all day long.” She sighed dreamily.

Ari, who was usually a little bored by all the gushing about Adrian, would've loved to latch on to the topic right then, but Becca was quicker.

“You can't tell me that Toby hasn't done anything yet. Has he at least touched your boobs?”

“Becca!” Ari squeaked, half shocked and half delighted.

Under Becca's scrutinizing look, she gave in. “Fine, yes, he has. But we haven't gone further yet.”

“Well, if he wants to, you shouldn't say no,” Becca advised grandly. “My sister did to her boyfriend when she was our age, you know, and he broke up with her.”

“Well, if you're not ready ...” Ari tried, but Becca waved her hand impatiently.

“Sixteen is old enough, don't be such a chicken.”

Ari thought about the conversation a lot in the following days. It wasn't that she was afraid, she decided. She wished she could talk to Mal about it, but surely, Mal would not be amused to be bothered with her childish questions about sex. Ari wanted very much for Mal to respect her, to see her as an equal now that she was growing up, and questions about when you knew was the right time for your first time were not going to achieve that.

So when Toby approached Ari on Thursday at school, kissed her right on the mouth and then excitedly told her that his parents were invited to a wedding on Friday and wouldn't be back before one or two in the morning, Ari was ready.

“We can watch a movie first, if you like,” Toby offered when he opened the door. Ari smiled and nodded, glad for the suggestion. They settled down on the couch, Toby with his arm around her from the beginning. They started kissing about half way through the movie. Ari liked kissing Toby, it was warm and familiar and made her feel safe. His hands started to wander after a while, but they had done that during their last few make-out sessions as well, so Ari kissed back with more enthusiasm, angling her body so that Toby could reach underneath her t-shirt easier. His hand fumbling with her bra, that was new. It took him a few minutes, but he got the clasps unhooked eventually. They were both breathing heavily now, Ari from nerves and Toby, if his tented pants were anything to go by, from arousal. “Should we, um, should we maybe move this upstairs?” Toby whispered, the line a bit stiff, clearly inspired by movies. “Yes,” Ari whispered back, letting herself be pulled up from the couch.

  


Ari curled up in her own bed a couple of hours later, and buried her face in her pillow. That had been … disappointing. She drew up her legs further and grimaced at the little twinge she felt between them. Sleep, for a change, wouldn't come easily. When she did arrive on the meadow, Mal was already there, waiting by the look of it.

“Ariadne, _chérie_ , where have you been?”

“Just … at a friend's house,” Ari murmured. The disappointment was still strong, she was unable to push it aside, even here in the dream where she found controlling her emotions easier and easier every day.

“Ariadne, what happened?” Mal asked sternly.

“Doesn't matter,” Ari said, hoping that Mal would drop it.

Mal narrowed her eyes. “What has happened, that you cannot trust me anymore?” she asked, and even though her voice was soft, Ari felt as if she had been slapped. “Of course I trust you!” she said, louder now, offended that Mal could think such a thing.

“Then please, my dear, tell me what is going on. You are unhappy, _non_?”

After a short moment of hesitation, Ari nodded. She didn't want to tell Mal about Toby, because that would make Mal angry, but she didn't want Mal to think she didn't trust her, either.

“I was … at Toby's” she whispered finally, down to her knees so that she wouldn't have to see Mal's face. “We slept together.”

“Was it your first time?” Mal asked, sounding neither angry nor curious, just matter-of-fact.

Ari nodded, still keeping her eyes firmly down. “Did it hurt?” Mal asked, still in that sober, emotionless way. Ari nodded again. “Did he move too fast, come too quickly then fall asleep a minute after?” Another nod. “Did you at least use protection?”

“Yes,” Ari said immediately. “Mal, I'm sorry, I -”

“ _Chut_ ,” Mal said. “Why are you sorry? I am sorry.”

Ari's eyes flew up. “You are?”

“Of course,” Mal assured, laying a soft palm against Ari's cheek. “Most people's first time is not so great, _ma petite_ , you should know that. I'm still sorry that you had to experience this first hand.”

Her hand had moved up into Ari's hair now and was combing through the strands. “I wish I could turn the clock back, but no one can. All I can do now is show you how it should be done.”

Ari blinked. “How it should be done?”

“Yes, Ariadne. You should know how _good_ it can be,” Mal all but _purred_ in Ari's ear.

Ari swallowed, hard. She knew exactly what Mal was offering. On the one hand, she was tired and still kind of sad and to try at sex again was just about the furthest thing from her mind. On the other hand, she had just told Mal about Toby and Mal wasn't angry, she had listened and now she wanted to make Ari happy. How could she refuse this offer without making it seem that she really didn't trust Mal? She couldn't. She _did_ trust Mal. It would be alright.

“Ok.” Her voice was shaky, but her hands, when she put them on Mal's shoulders, weren't. “Can we kiss first?”

Mal laughed. “Oh Ariadne. I have got a lot to teach you, it would seem.”

Before Ari could ask what she meant by that, Mal lowered her mouth and Ari stopped thinking.

They hadn't kissed since that first time, more than half a year ago now, but it was just as heady as Ari remembered. Toby's kisses were sweet, a little clumsy. Mal kissed like she would drown otherwise. Ari was so caught up in lips on lips, Mal's sweet, sweet scent and the silky strands underneath her fingers that she didn't register Mal’s  hand sneaking beneath her t-shirt and up her bare back until it had reached her bra clasp. She felt reminded of earlier that evening, but only for a second, because Mal opened the clasp in one smooth movement and then lingered over her spine, stroking up and down with just the very tips of her fingers. Ari shuddered, breaking the kiss to lay her head on Mal's shoulder and just breathe deeply for a few seconds.

“Alright, _ma chère_?” Mal asked, her voice somehow darker, richer.

“Yes,” Ari said, quietly but honestly.

“When I am done with you,” Mal said, “you will not even remember that boy's name.”

Ari didn't know how to reply to that, but it didn't matter because Mal was already brushing her bra straps from her shoulders and moving her hand to cup Ari’s breasts.

After that, it was all more or less a whirl. Ari felt like everything happened in bright snapshots of time. There was Mal, gently pushing her down into the grass. Mal, taking off Ari's t-shirt and bra in one smooth motion, immediately moving down to kiss first one breast, then the other. Mal, taking off her own dress, wearing nothing underneath. Mal, moving her hand up Ari's thigh and beneath her skirt, fingers drawing little circles. Mal, straddling her, both of them naked now, moving Ari's hands to touch her. Mal, between her legs, smiling up at her, mouth glistening.

After, Mal didn't roll to the side and fall asleep, she pulled Ari close, wrapping her with arms and legs and dreaming a blanket over both of them. She dropped tiny, fluttering kisses onto Ari's neck, gentle and unhurried.

“That was better, _non_?” she asked, mouth tickling Ari's ear. Ari turned in her arms to look at her, knowing that she was smiling helplessly.

 

 

  


“Aren't you excited for graduation _at all_?” Becca asked, practically jumping up and down in front of Ari.

“Becca, can you stop it?” Ari asked, feeling a mix of annoyance and amusement in the face of her friend's obvious delight. “Of course I'm excited. Maybe I just don't show it as much as you do.”

Becca grinned. “I bet. Hey, found anyone who'll take you to the prom yet?”

Ari sighed. “I'm still not going to the prom with some clumsy guy who'll step on my toes and try to touch my boobs, Becca. I'd rather go alone.”

“Oh come on, you wouldn't have to take a guy,” Becca said, her voice suddenly slightly different, more tentative. “What?” Ari asked, bewildered. “Last I looked, the posters still said that you should have a date for the first dance, at least, and the committee even offered to help pair us up.”

“I know,” Becca said. “You're not listening to me Ari. I said you didn't have to take a _guy_.” Becca's cheeks flushed ever so slightly, but her gaze was firm. Ari stared at her. “What...Are you trying to say I'd rather...I'm not taking a _girl_ to the prom, Becca, what the hell?!”

“Oh, come on, Ari. Since that disaster with Toby two years ago, when you just broke up with him out of the blue, you never had a boyfriend again. You never even _looked_ at boys anymore.”

Ari shook her head. She'd broken up with Toby after her first night with Mal, and she had never regretted it once. What she had with Mal was better.

“So I don't look at boys, big deal. Maybe I'm just not interested, full stop.”

“Yeah, but Ari...” Becca's face was bright red now, “you do look at girls, you know. Not at me!” she was quick to add when Ari gaped at her. “That's not what I'm saying at all. But, you know that girl in Arts class, Leanne? Stupid question, of course you know her, after all, you stare at her ass whenever she moves.” Becca had gotten louder as she was speaking. Her voice was ringing in Ari's ears.

“That's not – that's not true, Becca,” Ari said, not nearly as loud as Becca, nor sounding as convinced as she would have liked. She had promised, promised to Mal that night that there wouldn't be anyone else from now on, that she wouldn't ever look at anyone again.

She had, automatically, only thought of boys. She hadn't even considered that the fact that she was so attracted, so drawn to Mal might mean she would be attracted to girls, women, as a whole.

Mal was different, Mal had always been different, an exception that couldn't be explained or rationalized, and she had never even thought about her gender all that much. What counted was that she was Mal, not that Mal was a she. Apparently, she had been wrong.

Becca's eyes widened, probably a perfect mirror of Ari's face. “You, er, you didn't even notice you were staring, maybe?” she offered weakly. Ari shrugged, desperately attempting to appear casual, unbothered, when she was nothing of the sort. “Maybe. Something I can think about, huh?” Her laugh sounded hollow and false even to her own ears. Becca looked like she deeply regretted having brought it up at all. “Hey, Ari, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have pushed, I just don't want you to stand around all alone during the first dance, you know, and I thought maybe you just thought you couldn't tell me, but you totally could...” She trailed off. “It's fine, Becca,” Ari said, her voice a forced calm that she didn't feel. “I'm going to head home, ok?”

“What? Ari, we have French class in half an hour!”

But Ari had already turned around and was walking down the hall, glad when the air outside hit her, fresh and clear. It helped with her roiling stomach, at least. She had looked at Leanne, hadn't she?

Calling Leanne to mind, she had a clear picture, even though they had never really talked all that much. It wasn't good. She had broken her promise. The way home was a blur and when she arrived, she was glad that no one was in, and wouldn't be for a while. Both her parents tended to work late. She paced through the house, never once standing still. It wasn't even that she was worried that Mal would be angry. Disappointed, maybe, and the thought of that was like a weight dropped in Ari's stomach. What really got to her was that she had broken her promise, that she had let Mal down, that Mal couldn't rely on her word. The light outside started to fade while Ari's thoughts whirled and whirled. Her phone kept ringing, but she didn't bother to pick up. Becca, most likely. She'd make up an excuse tomorrow. When the house had gone entirely dark, Ari forced herself to get ready for bed. She was in no state to speak to her mother or father right now, and even though the thought alone made her stomach turn, she needed to talk to Mal, explain, apologize.

When she opened her eyes in the dream and the first thing she saw were Mal's beautiful blue eyes, she felt tears springing to her own. Mal, of course, knew immediately that something was wrong.

“Why are you crying, _ma petite_?” she asked, sounding anxious. “Has someone hurt you?”

Ari shook her head, trying to pull herself together. “Mal, I'm sorry.”

Mal frowned, uncomprehending. “What are you sorry for, _chérie_?”

Ari swallowed, and breathed. She wasn't usually one to break into tears spontaneously, and it annoyed her that she would cry now. This was important.

“I … I didn't know I was even doing it. I didn't notice,” she blurted out. She wasn't choking or sobbing, but she wasn't making much sense, either. Mal waited patiently until Ari had collected herself. “I … Becca said that I look at girls. A girl.” Her voice wavered, but didn't break.

“I swear I didn't even notice I did, it just … happened.”

Mal made a little sound, not angry, just thoughtful. “You trust this Becca?”

Ari nodded. “I don't see why she would be lying.”

“Maybe she's interested in you?” Mal asked, pleasantly inquiring, but Ari could see the fierceness in her eyes. She was quick to shake her head. “No, not at all, she has a boyfriend, they're very happy.”

“Then perhaps Becca is right?”

Ari hung her head. “I'm sorry,” she whispered again. “I promised.”

Mal was quiet for a long time. So long, in fact, that Ari couldn't bear it, and looked up.

Immediately, her chin was drawn up further by a single finger tip, until she had to look Mal in the eye.

“You didn't look at her intentionally,” Mal said, slowly. “You weren't even aware you were doing it. I think that makes it safe to say your promise isn't broken.”

Ari slumped in relief, but Mal kept holding her chin in place.

“Most importantly, you came to me, you told me. You've shown once more that I can trust you.” She kissed Ari once, gently, and Ari felt fresh tears on her face, happy ones this time.

“Good,” she choked out, burying her face against Mal's chest, finally being allowed to lower her head.

“However,” Mal's gentle voice continued, “I don't think you should be tempted beyond what's necessary, _non_?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, Ariadne, that you shouldn't go to the prom.”

Ari swallowed. Despite everything, she'd been looking forward to the prom. Becca had even taken her shopping. Fine, she hadn't wanted to do that stupid first dance, she hadn't wanted to go there _with_ anyone, but she'd planned on having fun with her friends, one night of just feeling young and free before everyone went off to college.

“Is that disappointment I see?” Mal asked, and even though her voice was still as soft as before, Ari could feel the steel beneath. She shook her head. It would have been fun to go to the prom, but if Mal didn't want her to, she wouldn't go. That wasn't even a question.

“We can dance here, together,” Mal suggested. “Close your eyes.”

Ari did, and kept them closed, even though she could feel the clothes on her body changing, as well as the light and the air around her.

“Open,” Mal commanded, and Ari did. The sky above her was a dark, dusky purple now. The trees were decorated with lanterns. In the middle of the meadow, a wooden dance floor was laid out, just big enough for the two of them. Mal was wearing a flowing black dress, which was so light it was whipping around her even though the wind wasn't strong. Ari looked down on herself and discovered that she was wearing a grey suit with a red shirt underneath, silky and almost transparent. Back in reality, she had a dress in her wardrobe, because Becca had said that Ari couldn't possibly wear _pants_ to _prom_ , but she had been wrong. Ari felt more herself in these clothes than she ever would in a skirt, no matter how gorgeous. They gave her confidence, enough to stretch her hand out and take Mal's to lead her onto the floor when the music started, coming from nowhere and everywhere at once, the sky and the grass and the trees.

 

  


“Are you sure that you have everything?”

Ari rolled her eyes. “Yes, mom, I'm sure. Just as sure as I was half an hour ago. Just as sure as I was when we left the house this morning.”

Her mom sighed and tutted a little, making as if to put the sheets she had (unnecessarily) laid out on the bed, on, but Ari stopped her gently. “Mom, I can do that, really. You guys should head on home, I know how much you hate driving in the dark.”

She looked at her dad, a little pleadingly, and he nodded and took her mom's hand.

“Come on, Rita, Ariadne is right. Let her settle in in peace. Her roommate will arrive any minute, I'm sure, and then we'd be as superfluous as anything, anyway.”

Ari's mom hesitated, then nodded. “Call us, yes, cookie?”

“Mom, if you start calling me cookie again, it really is time to leave,” Ari said with a smile, and walked her parents out into the hallway. “Of course I'll call. I bet I'll miss you more than you'll miss me, in the end.”

Her mom managed an, albeit teary-eyed, laugh at that. They hugged tightly, Ariadne's parents made their way down the hall, opened the double doors, waved one last time and were gone.

Ari took a deep breath and walked back into the room – her new home for at least the next year.

She busied herself with making the room comfy, putting the sheets on the bed (as she really was capable of doing all by herself, and had been for at least 12 years, thanks, _mom_ ), pinning a few posters and pictures on the wall, stacking her books onto the shelves. She was just balancing on a chair to reach the highest shelf when the door opened. “Hi there,” a voice said, and Ari almost over-balanced. “Um, hi there,” she replied, climbing down carefully and extending her hand.

The girl in front of her was tall, much taller than Ari, certainly, and her eyes were so dark that it was hard to tell where the iris ended and the pupil began. Her hair was cropped close to her head and beneath the tank top she was wearing, tattoos were clearly visible. “I'm Tasha,” the girl said, apparently oblivious to the effect she was having on Ari. “I'm Ariadne,” Ari heard herself say.

Tasha raised an eyebrow – a _pierced_ eyebrow. “Cool name.”

“You can call me Ari,” Ari said, feeling herself blush.

  


College was nothing like Ari had imagined it. Truth be told, she hadn't really imagined all that much to begin with. She'd chosen the place because it was far enough from her home town, but not too far should she want to visit, and because its reputation for architecture was excellent.

She hadn't expected to be pulled head first into college life, full of apparently mandatory experiences. Then, she hadn't expected Tasha either, of course.

  


“How is your roommate?” Mal had asked, the first night in college.

“Nice, I think,” Ari had said with a little shrug. “A little crazy maybe.”

She hadn't quite known herself why she had affected such a careless voice, had half expected Mal to call her out on it, to demand the whole truth, but Mal had smiled and kissed her and they had talked about different things. Ari wouldn't even have been sure what that would have been, this 'whole truth', but from their very first meeting, it had been clear to her that Tasha was a lot of things.

'Nice' wasn't exactly one of them, though.

  


“Come on, Ari, just try it.” Ari looked at Tasha doubtfully. “It's … it's illegal, isn't it?”

Tasha shrugged and laughed. “Yeah, kinda. Trust me, nothing's gonna happen to you though. Promise.” Ari looked into her dark dark eyes, and believed her.

“Ok then,” she agreed, and reached for the joint.

“Careful,” Tasha advised, handing it over, “just take it easy, yeah?”

Later (and Ari couldn't have said, for the life of her, _how much_ later, but it didn't matter at all) they sat on Ari's bed, with Tasha putting little braids and beads in Ari's hair for a reason Ari couldn't remember right now. “Your hair smells nice,” Tasha said dreamily. Ari giggled. She felt light and floaty, and when her eyes dropped closed, she let them, listening to Tasha humming something that sounded vaguely like _The Sound of Silence_. She didn't register Tasha's fingers leaving her hair and moving onto her face, not until there were lips on hers, soft and uninsistent, more a caress than a kiss. “No,” Ari said, and sat up so quickly that Tasha almost fell off the bed. “Sorry,” Tasha mumbled. “I just thought ... you know. We're good together.”

Ari nodded. It was true. “I can't,” she said, simply, but honestly. Tasha nodded in turn, slinging her arm around Ari.

Ari leaned against her shoulder, the touch welcome, comforting, familiar already.

“Why?” Tasha asked, not pushing, just curious.

Ari winced. “I want to tell you,” she admitted, down to her knees. “You wouldn't believe me, though.”

Tasha made a low humming sound. “Why wouldn't I?”

Ari laughed weakly. “It's too crazy.”

“I would like to know,” Tasha said quietly.

“Tomorrow then, ok? When we're both ourselves again, and you still want to know.”

“Ok,” Tasha whispered, and leaned her head against Ari's, which was still resting on her shoulder. Neither of them noticed when they slipped off into sleep, dreamless, for once.

  


Over breakfast the next morning (cereal from the dining hall, snuck into their room to eat side by side, on Ari's bed again) Tasha looked over at Ari. “You ok?”

“Yeah,” Ari said, stirring her Lucky Charms. “You?”

Tasha snorted. “I'm fine. You're the one who had her first high yesterday.”

Ari half-grinned despite herself.

“Still want to tell me why you wouldn't kiss me?” Tasha asked, looking at Ari intently. Ari tried to look back, but found it hard. “You'll find it weird.”

“Try me,” Tasha said, and she looked so earnest that Ari couldn't help herself.

“I … kind of have a girlfriend,” she started. Tasha didn't interrupt, just waited. “The thing is … the thing is, I've never actually met her. I'm not even sure … well, I dream of her. I have dreamed of her all my life.”

She looked at Tasha, feeling almost defiant, waiting for her to laugh, for her to call Ari crazy. Tasha just kept looking at her though.

“I know it sounds impossible, but she's just always been there.”

Tasha was quiet for another long moment, then she shrugged, easy and with a small smile. “It does sound crazy,” she agreed. “But why the hell should that mean that it isn't true, or that I wouldn't believe you?”

Ari breathed in relief, and Tasha laughed a little.

“Can you tell me more about her?”

Ari hesitated for a second, but the urge to finally, finally tell someone was too strong.

“Her name is Mal,” she began. “She's older than me, 12 years actually. I can't remember a time when she wasn't there for me, you know?”

“So, you dream of her every night?” Tasha asked, leaning forward slightly. Ari nodded.

“That's fascinating.”

“Um, I guess,” Ari agreed. Then, before her courage could leave her, she added, “But lately, it's been really weird. I mean, usually, we'd meet up every night, just hang out and talk -”

“- and kiss and fuck, presumably,” Tasha interjected, and Ari grinned despite herself, relieved beyond words that Tasha was taking her seriously, that she finally had someone to talk to about this.

“Yeah, that, too,” she admitted. “As I said though, lately, it's been different. All of last week, I kept dreaming of her multiple times a night, five or six at least, and every time, she asked where I had been all that time.”

“Hmmm,” Tasha said, drinking the last bit of milk straight from the bowl. “Sounds like her time is running differently from yours, or something.”

Ari nodded. “I'll ask her about that, tonight.”

“You should,” Tasha agreed. “Now, are you gonna eat the rest of that?”

  


“Ariadne, _chérie_ , it's so good to see you.” Ari found herself almost smothered by a hug, her nose full of Mal's familiar perfume.

“Mal, hey,” she said, trying to get a bit of distance between them. “Are you ok?”

“ _Oui_ , yes, I am, my sweet.” Ari took a second to take Mal in, her hair in disarray, her eyes gleaming in an almost feverish way. “I was just so scared that I wouldn't see you anymore.”

“Why would you be scared of that?” Ari asked, confused.

“I died,” Mal mumbled.

Ari was sure she hadn't heard right. “You what?”

“I died,” Mal repeated, matter of fact.

“Mal, are you sick?”

“ _Mais non, petite._ I am fine, I told you.”

Ari took her hand and they sat down next to each other.

“I'm glad you're ok,” Ari said after a few seconds of silence. “You were being weird, lately.”

Mal shrugged. “ As long as I am here with you, I am fine.”

 

  


“So, Ari, what about it, are we going to the bonfire tonight?”

Ari sighed, wishing she could give a different answer. “I can't Tasha. I … have to go to bed early.”

She gave Tasha a significant look, unable to say more with the others around, but knowing that Tasha would understand anyway. Tasha nodded, turning away quickly. Ari caught the disappointment on her face all the same.

Alone in their room once more, knowing that she should be getting ready for bed to meet with Mal, like she had promised, she idled instead. She had wanted to go to that bonfire, she really had, but Mal demanded her attention in an unprecedented way lately. Ari couldn't remember when she had last been able to take part in anything that lasted later than 12 pm, and even those evenings had become rarer. She was worried about Mal, but she couldn't deny, not to herself at least, that she was getting annoyed with Mal's neediness.

When she couldn't put it off any longer, she slipped under the covers and closed her eyes.

As had often been the case lately, Mal was already waiting for her, sitting curled in on herself underneath an apple tree, arms around her legs, face closed off and brooding.

Her expression lit up almost comically when she saw Ari coming towards her. She jumped up and opened her arms, the gesture strangely childish. Ari sighed inwardly, but smiled all the same, opening her arms in turn and catching Mal in a tight embrace.

“How are you?” she asked after a few seconds, carefully extracting herself.

Mal shrugged. “The same. Nothing interesting is happening to me, _chérie_. My days are just waiting for the night.”

Ariadne swallowed hard. It wasn't the first time Mal had said this. She'd made the mistake to enquire after Dom, the first time Mal had hinted that her life outside their dreams had become empty and not worth living anymore.

Mal had flinched as if Ari had physically hurt her.

“What about him?” she'd asked, defensive.

“I was just wondering, is everything ok between the two of you?” Ari had pressed on, all the more worried by Mal's strange reaction. Mal had scoffed.

“As 'ok' as we ever were, thank you,” she had said, coldly. “I'm not sure he'd even miss me, should I die.” It had been an off-handed remark, but Ari had sat up immediately, remembering Mal a few nights before, saying in a scared, small voice that she thought she had died. She'd quickly talked about something else, not at all sure how to handle the situation, and now, she still didn't know.

She didn't know much about Mal's life, had spent years actively _not_ thinking about it. She didn't even know, she realized, whether Mal and Dom had other friends, or even children. No, surely not the latter. Mal would have told her.

“Why don't we walk down to the lake?” Ari suggested. She had found that long walks through the dreamscape sometimes calmed Mal a little, that making up new things around themselves was fun for the both of them, still, that they could just be _them_ for a while longer, before the morning came.

Mal shook her head. “Let's walk up there, instead,” she suggested, and pointed through the trees to a cliff in the distance that Ari had never noticed. “Let's climb up there and stand at the edge and feel like the queens of this world that we are,” Mal continued, already taking Ari's hand and pulling her forward. Ari was so relieved that Mal took charge of anything again that she followed, firmly ignoring the nausea in her stomach.

Upon waking up, she still felt the wind in her hair, pulling at her clothes as if it wanted to drag her down, and all day, whenever she closed her eyes, she could see Mal's blissful expression, could see the way she had edged closer and closer to the brink until her naked toes had wiggled in the thin air.

  


“You can come over to mine tonight, if you like,” Tasha offered a few days later. “You can sleep whenever you want,” she added, when she saw Ari hesitating. “But wouldn't it be nice to get out of the room for a night or two?”

Ari sighed, but nodded. If she didn't do something other than hanging out in their room and going to bed early, she might just lose her mind. Tasha's family lived close by, so she sometimes went home for the weekend. Ari had tagged along a few times already, and always liked it, so there wasn't anything she could very well say against it.

She didn't even comment when Tasha packed two bottles of wine, even though she didn't like dreaming drunk. The evening was fun, more than expected even. Ari found that it was a relief to spend time (outside of classes and the daily routine) with people who weren't Mal. She helped Tasha cook dinner for Tasha's mom and sisters who were also in town. Ari was fascinated by Tasha's family, the fact that they were all female, and all seemed to regard each other as equals. Tasha's mom was the first to open the wine, even, and Ari just couldn't bring herself to say no. One glass turned into two turned into three, and soon, they were laughing and telling stories and Ari just forgot to keep an eye on the time. When everyone started going to bed, Tasha pulled Ari up and led her outside. “Let's not go to sleep just yet,” she whispered and gently pushed Ari into the basket swing that was hanging from the gnarled branches of an old apple tree. She plopped down beside her and Ari automatically rested her head on Tasha's shoulder.

“This is nice,” she said softly, almost to herself.

“It could always be like this,” Tasha said, just as softly.

“What?” Ari asked, uncomprehending and not entirely sure she had heard right.

“This,” Tasha repeated, not looking at Ari, but up at the stars above them. “We _are_ good together, Ari. I know you say you love Mal, but I think … I don't know, I think she's making it too hard. You're barely even living anymore.”

Ari swallowed but didn't say anything. “I'm not asking you to choose between me and her or anything, I'd never ask that of you. I'll always be here, you know, as a friend, if you want. I just … I'd just like to ask you whether she would do the same thing, for you. Would she let you be my friend, if she knew that we kissed, back then? If she knew that I'd like to do it again? Would she still be your friend if that was all you wanted from her, now?”

Ari resisted the impulse to just put her hands over her ears. The problem was that Tasha was right. She was saying all the things Ari had been thinking, or rather, desperately trying _not_ to think. When Ari still didn't say anything, Tasha moved, slowly, and touched Ari's face with her fingertips, somehow drawing her closer. Ari's head told her to pull away, to get up, to leave, but instead, her own hands were coming up to frame Tasha's face. Strangely enough, Ari felt more like she was in a dream than she normally did while she was actually sleeping. In some way she felt like she was watching from outside as her face moved closer to Tasha's, as their lips touched, once, twice. It was Tasha who pulled back first.

“I don't think this is a good idea,” she said, and there was so much sadness in her voice. “You love her, and that's ok. That doesn't mean I won't be here, having your back. Why don't you go on upstairs, she'll be waiting for you by now.”

Ari shook her head dumbly. “What about you?”

Tasha smiled, her eyes looking impossibly big and shining in the dark. “I'll stay out here a bit longer, yeah?”

Ari nodded and got up, walking back inside and into the room where she was sleeping for the night. Before she fell asleep, the chaos in her head formed into one coherent thought. _Prove Tasha wrong_.

  


“Ariadne!” Mal exclaimed, striding towards her immediately. “Where have you been?”

Ari opened her mouth to make up some excuse, to explain away her lateness somehow but what came out was, “I was with Tasha. I'm spending the weekend at her family’s house.”

Mal frowned. “Tasha? _Qui est-ce?_ ”

“My roommate,” Ari said.

“I didn't know you two were so close,” Mal said, frown deepening into something disapproving, almost dark. All Ari wanted to do was say that they weren't, that she'd come with Tasha on a lark, that she barely knew her, but she thought of Tasha's shining eyes, of her soft voice in the dark, and couldn't.

“We are. We're really close. She's my best friend, in the real world.”

Mal scoffed. “I thought Becca was your best friend.”

Ari actually found it in herself to roll her eyes. “Becca was back home, in high school. Besides, she never knew me as well as Tasha does.”

“And what is _that_ supposed to mean?” Mal asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

Ari took a deep breath. “It means that Tasha knows about you. She doesn't mind. She believes me.”

Despite watching Mal closely, Ari couldn't have named all the conflicting emotions flitting over her face. They were there and then gone as Mal's face became blank. “I see.”

“Do you though?” The words were soft, but Ari might as well have shouted them, from the way they kept ringing in the silence that followed.

“She's _important_ to me,” Ari said, desperately hoping that Mal would somehow find it in herself to understand. “She gets me. I can _be me_ when I'm around her.”

Mal's face might as well have been carved from stone. “Be you, yes? So what, I wonder, are you here, then, Ariadne?”

Ari swallowed. “I didn't mean it that way, Mal, I just—”

“Oh, but I think you did. Do you think I have not noticed your long-suffering looks? Do you think I have not noticed that you arrive later and later every night? Do you think I have not noticed that you would rather take a walk than kiss and touch me? Tell me, Ariadne, are those things more pleasant with Tasha, too?”

Ari felt herself flush. “That's not … we don't … I've never wanted her the way I want you. I've never wanted anyone that way. How can that not be enough for you? How can you keep asking for more and more and more?”

Mal held up her hand and Ari stopped talking, immediately angry at herself for it.

“I keep asking for more?” Mal repeated, quietly and in a voice so dangerous that Ari couldn't have spoken had she wanted to. “ _I_ keep asking for more? I have been there for you your _whole life_. I have been with you through everything, I taught you most of what you know, you ungrateful _child_ , and this is how you repay me? By sleeping with the next best girl you meet just because she is there?”

“Mal,” Ari said, and she was crying now, feeling as though her world was breaking up underneath her. “How can you say that? Why would you say that?”

“So it's not true?” Mal asked, sly and desperately hopeful all at once. “You've never slept with her?”

Ari shook her head vehemently. “Never even kissed her?” Mal continued, and Ari could see on her face that she knew the truth as soon as she had asked the question.

“Let me explain,” Ari began, but Mal shook her head. “I think not. I think you should just go. That's what you want, isn't it?”

“No!” Ari said, and suddenly, _finally_ , she was angry. “That's not what I want at all. What I want is for us to be us again, or at least to be friends if that doesn't work. We could just be friends again, Mal, take a break from everything else until you're feeling better, because I know you're in a bad place right now. I can't cope with it anymore. I need to have a life outside of this. I need to find out who I am, aside from your girl. I can't do that when I have to be here on time, every single night. I can't do that when you're making me choose between you and other people.”

She shook her head, feeling tired, too tired for someone asleep. “I love you, Mal, but right now, I just don't think I can be with you. I think we should be friends again, for a little while, take some time, both of us, to figure out what we really want. I never want to leave here, to leave you. But I need a break.” She breathed deeply, looking at Mal, not sure what to expect.

“Fuck you,” Mal said, quietly but with so much feeling that it felt like a physical slap to the face. “I don't need you. I've never needed you.”

“Ok, that's fine,” Ari said, proud of how little her voice wavered. “Then this is goodbye.”

She saw Mal's face for a second or two longer, then she opened her eyes to the dark ceiling of Tasha's guest room.

Ariadne curled into a little ball and cried while the black outside her window turned to blue and then to murky grey, the rain drumming against the windows drowning out her sobs.

 

 

**Part Two**

  
  


Ari still isn't used to seeing the Eiffel Tower every day on her way to college.

By now, she's managing to feel a flicker of excitement for it though, for living in Paris, for making it on her own in a different country, on a different continent, as far from home as she can imagine being. Not one day passes without her missing Mal, although there are hours, now, where she doesn't hurt. She's made it entire afternoons without seeing the painfully blank face of her best friend, her lover, but those are rare. Tasha calls, and they talk, but it isn't like it used to be.

The first week after The Fight (and Ariadne can't help herself but think of it in capital letters), Ariadne didn't sleep for almost 36 hours, too afraid of what might happen in her dreams.

After that, she got either stoned or pass-out drunk, both foolproof ways not to dream, she's found.

When she finally felt ready to face Mal (and Tasha put in a word, clearly worried that Ari might end up killing herself by choking on her own puke in a corner somewhere, although she didn't say it in quite so many words), she'd fallen asleep and dreamt of their meadow. Mal wasn't there. Ari waited all night, called. Nothing. Nor the next night. She'd hiked to the cliff and through the forest, hoping that she would find Mal, that she was hiding somewhere, that it was all a test. Her hope dwindled with every night. She started doubting that Mal had been real. Starting to doubt her own sanity (and wasn't that ironic, that her grip on reality seemed to slide away from her now that she was finally dreaming like a normal person). Tasha tried to find out what had happened, but Ari couldn't trust her anymore, not when she was, in part, the reason it had all gone so terribly wrong. They'd drifted apart more and more, with Ari spending a lot of her time in the library, and Tasha taking to sleeping at friend's places. Ari didn't ask whether those were just friends. She simply couldn't find the energy to care. It wasn't until a good three months after The Fight that Ari found herself caring for something again. She was , as usual, in the library, reading through old papers on architecture, when suddenly, a name made her stop. She reread the sentence carefully, and there it was: Professor Miles , teaching in Paris, had written an essay recommended for further reading by the author of the paper Ari was holding at that moment. Professor Miles...she remembered, clear as day, Mal talking about her father, how he was from England, but worked in Paris some of the year. She'd ripped the page out and then didn't look at it for three days. A few times, she typed the name into her computer, then lost her nerve and deleted it, but when she finally did go through with the search, her breath stopped. There were articles about Professor Miles recommending several of his essays, papers and even two books, praising his teaching in Paris and the States, but those, Ari barely noticed.

One thing however, caught her eye immediately. It was from a news website , and it said something about the tragic death of Miles' daughter – Mallorie Cobb. Ari clicked the link, feeling numb, breathless and strangely weak at the same time. It was just a short notice about students staging a wake for the daughter of their professor. It seemed a bit unusual to Ari; at her college, no one was that close to a professor, but apparently, Miles was very well liked and respected. The article just spoke of a tragic accident, but Ari just knew that more had to be to it. Instead of going to bed that night, she stayed at the library, finding out everything she could about the tragic death of Mallorie Cobb. The next morning found her in front of the student exchange office, asking for information on transferring to France for the rest of her degree.

  
  


Ari always arrives at the college early. It's become a habit since she's found out that Professor Miles sorts through old papers before class, always looking for interesting subjects and projects, and that he doesn't mind a bit of help, and a friendly chat while they work. Ari has been a top student pretty much from the day she arrived. Unlike her peers, she doesn't much care for going out, for travelling on weekends. She's looked at all the interesting and noteworthy buildings, of course, so that she'll know what she's talking about in class, but her social life is mostly non-existent.

She's studying a lot, and when she isn't studying or helping at the college after hours, she's doing research. Research on Cobb, mostly. She's got entire folders on his life. She knows where he grew up, his parents' names, his first school. His past is easy enough to trace, if you are willing to take some risks. Ari doesn't really have a lot to lose, she thinks.

His present...well, that is harder. She knows all about the alleged accident or the alleged murder, depending on which paper you read. She knows about the children – finding out about them was by far the biggest shock. There's so much about Mal's life that she didn't know. It hurts just thinking about it. Mal knew all of Ari, knew her inside out, but some days, Ari feels like she barely scratched the surface of Mal. She _knows_ it's her own fault, that she wasn't trustworthy, that Mal must have been protecting herself. There simply is no other explanation.

  
  


In some ways, she always feels raw and weary these days. She makes sure not to show it when Miles is around, of course. The professor has taken a liking to her, just as she had intended, and from him, she's gotten the most valuable information. It takes a while to get him there, and it won't always work, but once he's started talking about his daughter, there is almost no stopping him. Ari is a good listener, nodding and asking the right questions at the right time, squeezing his shoulder gently as she does so.

She knows that he's accepted her as, well, maybe not a substitute, but certainly more than a student. She's been invited to dinner a few times, even, but the pictures of Mal all around the house make her nauseous, especially the ones with Dom. Miles doesn't seem to notice how uncomfortable and trapped Mal looks in those pictures, he just keeps reminiscing, misty eyed, but Ari is more observant. The pictures with the children make her heart ache, because Mal's love for them is evident. Ari feels jealous in a way she hasn't in months when she's first shown one of those. She knows that the children are living in the States with Miles' wife Marie at the moment. She knows that Miles flies back and forth regularly, and she suspects that he meets with Cobb when he's in Paris.

Miles believes Cobb's story, she knows, he believes that Cobb is innocent, but Ari feels that there is more to the story. Neither side satisfies her, because both depict Mal as the victim. Cobb's story is that she killed herself, that she wasn't thinking clearly — confused and possibly disturbed, asking him to follow her. The police say that Cobb pushed her, that there was a fight and that he killed his wife. Ari has read statement upon statement. None of them ring true. She's stuck, however, without any new information and unsure where to search.

One day after class, however, Miles stops her as she walks down the hall.

“Ariadne?” he calls. “I'd like you to meet Mr Cobb.”

  
  


Cobb is exactly like Ari imagined him, in some ways, but at the same time, nothing was enough to prepare her for him. He smiles and shakes her hand, insisting on being ridiculously mysterious about the 'job offer'. He must think that he's charming, she realises. As it is, she has to work hard to not shudder when he looks at her. She knows that this is a chance, her chance, to find out what happened, to maybe finally be able to get something resembling _closure_ , so she's determined to get this job, whatever it is. She makes sure to not seem subdued or intimidated, eating her croissant while he leads her onto the roof, asking questions when he tells her what to do. The first two mazes she draws are not good enough, and his smug little head shake makes her angry. Unbidden, Mal pops into her head, telling her to dare the unexpected, to be herself. The memory of her voice, even if it probably never said those exact words, has her reeling for a second or two. Cobb doesn't notice. Determined to do better, to do everything to get the information she needs, to not miss this opportunity, she turns the notepad around, and starts drawing.

  
  


The first time dreaming with the PASIV is strange. Ariadne barely knows anything about it, except for the name and that Mal's father used it to experiment, but it's still an uncomfortable sensation, winding up in a dream feeling wide awake. She's only experienced this with Mal, and that was different, so different. Here, Cobb is sitting next to her, his knees almost touching hers underneath the small table. When he talks to her, it's in a teacher's manner, lecturing almost. He clearly feels so superior, so smart, and she has a hard time hiding her disdain, playing along. When he 'reveals' that they're dreaming, she decides to have a little fun.

Letting buildings explode isn't as easy as it looks, you really do have to channel a lot of energy, so she supposes it's plausible enough that this would happen to someone who just realized they were dreaming, while absolutely certain they are awake. Mal and Ari let off steam that way, in the early days of their building and discovering, took half a night to design and assemble a beautiful house, then blew it to pieces just for the fun of it. She makes sure to start out large and then go smaller, closer to them, and right before the dream ends, she lets Cobb's cup blow up right in his face. It's all about the simple pleasures, after all.

The first thing that really, genuinely surprises her is that, apparently, they were in that dream for five minutes only. With Mal, time always differed, very much depending on what they were doing, where they were going, and somehow, Ari never kept track. She files the information away for later as Cobb prepares them for the next dream.

This one is a lot more fascinating. If she overlooks Cobb's condescending way of talking (and, well, she's just gonna have to), what comes out of his mouth is actually valuable to her. She's never heard of 'projections' before. After a while, though, she gets bored. Time to show off, to make Cobb believe that he _will_ need her, to make herself indispensable.

“My question is, what happens when you start messing with the physics of it all?”

She has no idea whether there are people who can do what she's doing to Paris, who can bend a city in half on their first try, or, more importantly, would even think of it, but from the look on Cobb's face, he at least has never met anyone. _Good_.

It's not as easy as she makes it look, of course, but the years of practise pay off. Bending the rules was Mal's favorite thing to do, after all.

What Ariadne didn't expect is how uncomfortable Cobb's projections would make her feel. They won't stop looking at her, and even though Cobb says it's down to her changing the world they're in, she's scared that it could be because deep down, Cobb suspects her of having dream-experience after all. No way back now, though. She needs to impress him with creativity, she decides, not just with skills that every dreamer could eventually acquire, but with genuine inspiration.

The mirror doors are perfect. The bridge makes her feel safer, somehow, because it's something that she knows. Cobb, on the other hand, seems very shaken all of a sudden. He tells her to never build from memory, because otherwise, you might forget what's real, and suddenly, it hits her.

“Is that what happened to you?” _Bingo_. He grabs her, spins her around, but she just presses on, knowing that she's found something.

“Is that why you need me to build your dreams?” She feels smug for one glorious second. Then, the hands grab for her, pull on her, pull her away from Cobb. Ari struggles, and suddenly, she sees Mal.

She screams, this isn't real and she needs to wake up, but for some reason, she _can't_ , even though it always worked with … and now Mal is there, and it hurts to see her, so familiar and so _wrong_ , face twisted, cold, determined. She pulls her arm back, and she _stabs_ and then, Ari is in the warehouse again, gasping for breath.

Cobb's little helper, she can't remember his name, is there immediately, calming her, while Cobb jumps up and runs to a table. She doesn't care. She asks questions, still with Mal's face flashing in front of her inner eye, and Cobb's guy patiently explains them, obviously trying to calm her, but it doesn't work. How could _anyone_ work with Cobb when this is what he keeps in his mind, a twisted version of the alleged love of his life. Ari doesn't know what she's doing or saying, not really, but the next second, she's out the door and back on the street, walking away and trying not to cry.

  
  


When Ari arrives home, she's tired, weary, from walking around the city the entire afternoon.

It's quite early yet, but she doesn't care, just gets into bed and closes her eyes, ready for sleep to black out the thoughts in her head for a little while, ready for a bit of peace. As she slips away, she can suddenly hear a voice, though, saying her name, whispering it.

“Ariadne. Ariadne, my dear.” Ari _knows_ that voice, and she struggles, but her eyes won’t open.

“ _Ma chère._ How I've missed you.” Ari can feel that she's dreaming, knows that she's under, but she refuses to open her eyes. She can block out the voice. The voice is quiet, though, now. Ari strains her ears, but she hears nothing, no breathing, no steps. Then, there are fingers touching her face, stroking over her eyelids and lips, softly, gently. Ari wants to scream, but she can't.

“Open your eyes, my love,” Mal whispers, and she has to obey. Mal doesn't look like she did in Cobb's dream, her face is not cold, it's lit up by a smile. She seems to glow, and when her arms close around Ari, it's like being enveloped by spring itself. Ari melts into the touch for a second, two, three, then she tries to draw away. Mal doesn't keep her, just opens her arms and lets them fall away from around Ari. Without them, it's cold. Ari shudders. “You killed me.”

Her own voice sounds strange to her ears, hoarse, wavery. “Mal, you killed me.”

“And you killed me, my heart. You left me, and the last thing I stayed alive for was gone. Now we are even.”

Ari shakes her head, because what Mal is saying is _wrong_ , no matter how right and true it sounds.

“You killed yourself,” Ari says, but quietly, uncertainly.

“ _Oh, mais non_. Would I ever have left you, if I felt that you still needed me?” Mal looks expectant, like she wants an answer, and Ari surprises herself by shaking her head. Mal would never have left her, if Ari hadn't basically told her to, right? She's confused, and she finds it hard to focus on her thoughts. Nothing is really making sense anymore, except for Mal's voice. Then, however, Mal's hands stray from Ari's face to her stomach, stroking the place where she was stabbed – where _Mal stabbed her._ All at once, Ari can think clearly again.

“No, you killed me, you literally put a _knife_ through me. You're not the Mal I remember.”

Mal's face falls, and Ari gets her hands off of her once more. “Stay away from me.”

She turns around and walks away, into the darkness of the dream, and when she looks over her shoulder, Mal is gone.

  
  


The next day, Ari feels light hearted, happy, for the first time in a long time. She doesn't even remember the last time she got up and didn't immediately want to go back to bed.

She whistles on her way to the college, smiling at everyone she sees, even the people jostling her on the Métro. She walks the rest of the way and it's as if she's only now seeing the beauty of Paris that everyone has told her about. Throughout her first lecture, she only takes a few notes, instead letting her gaze stray to the window every once in a while, trying to decide what to do with the day. Perhaps she could take one of those super touristy boat rides on the Seine? She could even ask someone to come with her ...

Ari's good mood lasts until the first break. Professor Miles stops her on her way to the next lecture.

“So, the job wasn't for you, then?” he asks, and she can't read his face at all, gets neither approval nor displeasure. She shrugs, feeling her happy little bubble shrink as she looks him in the eye, and sees an indefinable sadness there.

“It was his only way to go home, he said,” Miles continues.

“I'm sorry, sir, did you want him to go home?” Ariadne can't help but ask. She knows it's rude, but Miles just smiles a little.

“Funny you should ask. The thing is, I thought I didn't, my dear. I'm still not sure he didn't do what they say he did, you know? I know he loved my daughter, but every day, I have to wonder, did she love him?”

Ariadne doesn't dare breathe, not wanting to break the mood, hoping to keep Miles talking.

“The marriage was such a whirlwind affair,” Miles sighs, obviously deeply lost in thought.

“They were barely together for more than a few months, and when I say together … Mallorie always needed to have her own way, and I knew her very well. To me, their relationship, if you can call it that, felt a lot like she was trying to get back at someone. I have no idea who that could have been, mind. Well, as I said, they'd been a couple for just a few months when Mallorie became pregnant and Dom … he pressured her to keep the baby, I'm sure of it. They got married and the baby was born and that was that, wasn't it? She never came back to experiment as much as she used to – dreams, my dear, as I am sure you have figured out by now. He showed you, didn't he?”

Ari nods, and Miles huffs. “They did a lot of dreaming together, I'm sure of it. I suspect that he was trying to make her love him through his dreams, which isn't even a stupid idea, truth to be told. If there's one thing he could do, it was build a world.”

Miles sighs again, then he blinks and shakes his head a little ruefully. “I'm sorry my dear, you must be running late, while I bore you with the wistful memories and unfounded musings of an old man. Off you go.”

Before Ari can do anything other than stammer, “No, really, Professor, I -” , Miles has turned away and walked back down the hall to his office.

  
  


Ari just makes it to her next class, but she doesn't pay attention. Mal only married Dom because he had pressured her to? Ari very much wants to believe that. Miles felt as if Mal had tried to get back at someone? Well, Mal _did_ call Dom that first night, when Ari came back from her date. Ari still remembers that dream clearly, remembers how confused and hurt she was by Mal leaving. _It was just jealousy._ For one second, Ari fels strangely relieved, but then she remembers everything else Miles told her. Mal didn't even want to marry Dom, most likely.

A nagging little voice pipes up in the back of Ari's head. _It's kind of your fault,_ it says. That's absurd. Why would it be Ari's fault if Mal decided to make herself unhappy?

_You were everything to each other,_ the little voice presses on. _Remember how much it hurt to be left in that dream, how much it hurt to know she always had Dom back in her life? Now imagine how much she must have heard when you told her about Toby, or Tasha. You chose both of them over her. She was just with Dom to protect herself._

Ari wants to clamp her hands over her ears and scream. _Mal loved you,_ the voice whispers.

_And you? You killed her._

“No!” Ari shouts, and then realizes that she's gotten up in the middle of the lecture hall. Everyone is staring at her. “Sorry,” she mumbles, grabbing for her bag and dashing down her row of seats, then out the door. For the second time in two days, she wanders the streets aimlessly.

_You killed her. You said you didn't need her anymore. You killed her._

When she goes to bed that night, she knows Mal isn't going to be there, but some hope remains.

Her dreams are dark and confusing, she’s slipping in and out of lucidity, calling for Mal and getting no answer. When she wakes up, she knows what she has to do.

  
  


Walking back into the workshop isn't as embarrassing as Ariadne thought it would be. Cobb is nowhere to be seen, it's just that guy – Arthur, she remembers — working on the PASIV.

He turns around when she comes in, smiling slightly. “Cobb said you'd be back.”

She doesn't really know what to say, and goes for the truth, “I tried not to come, but ...”

But what? But I need to avenge Cobb's wife? But I want to find out what happened to my dream-girlfriend? Luckily, Arthur finishes the sentence for her.

“But there's nothing quite like it.” She smiles, nods. This is going to be easier than she thought it would be.

Spending time in the dream with Arthur is nothing like being down there with Cobb. She likes the sleek lines of his builds, how nothing seems to be without a purpose. It would be wrong to say, however, that his design isn't whimsical.

“...like the Penrose steps. The infinite staircase. See? Paradox.” His smile is small but proud. Ari decides that she likes him. Arthur's explanations are actually helpful instead of confusing and mysterious, and Ariadne takes mental notes while he tells her about structures that will help them hide. Soon, she feels comfortable enough to ask about Cobb.

“Cobb can't build anymore, can he?” She tries to make it sound as harmless, as genuinely curious as she can, and it works.

Arthur brings up Mal himself, and all she has to do is play a little dumb. It's a risk, of course, because Cobb at least knows that she's been studying with Miles and that she would probably know about the dead daughter, but Arthur doesn't seem to suspect a thing.

“No, she's dead,” he says, and from the way his face twists, Ari suddenly realizes that he must have known her, known her well. “What you see in there is just his projection of her,” Arthur continues, and Ari knows that can't be quite true, but she doesn’t say that. She wants to keep quiet, to let him talk, but a question slips from her lips before she can stop herself. “What was she like in real life?”

“She was lovely,” Arthur replies, and there's a bitterness to his voice that makes Ari think, for just a second, that he loved Mal too, maybe was with her when Cobb was away – but no. Arthur's eyes don't have Cobb's manic glint or the desperation that Ari feels when she thinks of Mal. Arthur's sadness looks more like that of Miles. A faraway look and a wistful sadness. They must have been friends. Ari doesn't ask any more, just concentrates on the lesson, and Arthur, to her relief, doesn't bring Mal up again.

At night, she has a hard time falling asleep, so excited she feels like she might throw up, but when she does fall asleep, Mal is there immediately, as if she'd never been gone.

“Ariadne!” she says, and there is so much happiness on her face that Ari can't help herself. She throws herself into Mal's arms and starts crying, cries like she did when she and Mal first separated.

Mal holds her and kisses her face, rocks her gently and whispers soothing words until Ari's sobs slowly subside.

“You came back,” Mal says, and there is so much wonder in her voice that Ari almost starts crying again. She swallows hard instead.

“Of course I did. I'm nothing without you.”

“Nor am I,” Mal agrees, gently stroking her hair. Ariadne hasn't felt this safe in a long time.

“How did you find me again?” Mal asks, curious.

“I went back,” Ari admits. “I think something about using the PASIV just opens me to you or something.”

“Was Dom there?”

“No, I dreamed with Arthur.” Ari looks at Mal, wanting to know how she'll react. Mal's face twists into the same sad little smile that Arthur smiled when he told Ari that Mal was lovely.

Ari feels strangely satisfied. It's very clear that Mal and Arthur were on the same page in real life.

Even though the idea of Mal having a friend, a real friend whom she could trust, would have made Ari jealous a year ago, she feels nothing but relief now. It's good to know that Mal had someone in real life when she was with Dom, that she didn't spend her waking hours isolated.

“He's ok,” Ari says. “I think he's doing well, even though he misses you. He's been very nice to me. I like him.”

“Of course you would,” Mal murmurs into Ari's hair, her own voice sounding tearful now.

“Do you plan on going back, _chérie_?” Mal then asks, and Ari isn't quite sure what answer she expects.

“If you want me to,” she says uncertainly.

To her surprise, Mal nods. “I do. Our bond needs to be strengthened, and this is your best opportunity.”

“Do you want Dom to go home to … to your children?”

It's the first time Ari has mentioned the children, and it hurts. Mal seems to know, she holds her tighter again.

“No. My children will be safest with _maman_ , I should think. I don't want him near them. That's another reason for you to go back. You need to make sure he succeeds.”

“What?” Ari asks, entirely confused now. “But you just said -”

“I want him to think,” Mal says, and her face grows hard, “that he has done what he wanted to do, that he can go home. Then I want him destroyed. He'll never lay eyes on our children again.”

 

  
  


Working with the team is more enjoyable than Ari would have imagined.

Yusuf is intelligent and pleasant, Eames is funny and inappropriate and so much cleverer than anyone gives him credit for. Arthur is as sharp and organised as ever. Cobb, of course, is still the perfect definition of an asshole, demanding and uncreative himself, sneaking away after everyone else has gone home. He's using the PASIV to dream of Mal, Ari suspects, so she herself takes to staying behind. She uses working on her totem as an excuse, although she has little need for one. What does it matter which world is 'the real one', after all? All that counts is Mal.

She sneaks into the backroom one night, hoping to catch Cobb, but he's already putting the PASIV away, mumbling something about 'running experiments' when she asks whether he is going under on his own. She shows him her totem, asking innocently whether it was his idea. She knows it was Mal's, and she also knows what her totem was. Mal has shown her the spinning top at night, has watched it spin and spin and spin with her.

“He knew, of course,” Mal scoffed. “He sneaked in on me, told me that we shouldn't have secrets from each other.”

“Arthur told me she passed away,” Ari says now, in response to Cobb telling her it was Mal who had the idea for totems. She hopes that he might tell her more, confide in her maybe, but he changes the subject, makes her talk about the mazes instead. Ari has spent a lot of time on them, because she wants, _needs_ the inception to work. She can't disappoint Mal.

She tries showing him one of the layers, but he backs away. Not entirely as stupid as he looks, then.

He warns her about people bringing projections, and she can't help but correct him.

“You mean in case you bring Mal in. You can't keep her out, can you?”

He purses his lips, but to her surprise, he doesn't deny it.

“You can't build because, if you know the maze, then she will,” Ari presses on. “She'd sabotage the whole operation.”

It's satisfying in a cruel way to make him listen to this, to the truth that he's obviously running from, more than from the police, possibly.

“Cobb, do the others know?”

“No. No, they don't”

“You've gotta warn them, if this is getting worse.”

“No one said it's getting worse!” He turns around to her, looks at her. “I need to get home. That's all I care about right now.”

_Oh, but you won't. You'll never, ever get home._

“Why can't you go home?”

“Because they think I killed her.” Ari didn't expect the truth, not really, but there it is. He must trust her more than she expected. _Good._

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not asking whether I did.”

He turns away and leaves without another word, and Ari feels a sense of accomplishment. She's sure that he doesn't suspect her now.

  
  


The planning stage is exciting. Ari finds that she enjoys herself as she watches Arthur and Eames bicker like an old married couple (and how she could ever have thought that Arthur might have been in love with Mal when it's so very, very clear now that it's a different colleague that he wants is a mystery to her). She teaches Yusuf the maze for the first layer and Arthur the one for the second and enjoys that, too, enjoys feeling a purpose. They are good days, and better nights, as she tells Mal all about the layers, all about the plan. They want Cobb to suffer, they're both clear on that.

All the while, she still hopes to find out what Cobb is doing, because she is certain that he's dreaming on his own. She never seems to be able to catch him, though.

They talk about how the different levels will affect each other, and for the first time, Ari realizes how much will be at stake for her. _Ten years on the third level._ She doesn't want to be stuck somewhere for this long, can't be separated from Mal, _her_ Mal, for that long, so she redoubles her efforts, works hard.

  
  


Then, one night, she finally, finally catches Cobb. She's failed so often by now that it's almost a shock to see him lie there on his own, hooked up to the whirring PASIV.

_Completely unprotected,_ she thinks, and for a second, she feels the impulse to put her hands around his throat, feels Mal's burning rage in herself. She doesn't, of course, just breathes in and out deeply and attaches one of the lines to her own arm.

  
  


Ari finds herself in an elevator going down as she opens her eyes. Through the grating, she can see Cobb – and Mal. Her breath stops. Mal is touching Cobb's hair, whispering to him.

“You remember when you asked me to marry you?” It hurts, much worse than ever hearing about Cobb, than Mal talking about him, because this feels _real_ , it's nothing that can be pushed aside or denied.

“Of course I do,” Cobb murmurs and his hand moves on Mal's knee. Ari can't hear the rest over the strange white noise in her head, but she must have made a sound herself, because suddenly, Mal looks up. Her gaze freezes Ari. Their eyes lock, and it feels like the moment might last forever, but then Cobb gets up, strides towards her.

“You shouldn't be here,” he says, in a voice that is more fear than anger.

He joins her in the elevator, presses the button for twelve.

“I just wanted to know what kinds of tests you were running every night on your own,” Ari mumbles, but it doesn't sound convincing. Seeing him with Mal has completely thrown her.

“This has nothing to do with you.”

“This has everything to do with me. You've asked me to share dreams with you.” She half means to address Mal, but the elevator is already moving upwards. Cobb, of course, feels spoken to anyway.

“Not these. These are my dreams.”

Would that have been Mal's answer, Ari wonders, and she doesn't know, _she doesn't know._

Her head is spinning.

They arrive at a beach, and there's Mal again, together with two children she recognizes from the pictures Miles showed her.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” The question comes out involuntarily, because she doesn't want to care, and at the same time, she needs to know.

“It's the only way I can still dream.”

“Why is it so important to dream?” Ari knows this answer for herself, it's obvious to her, that only through her dreams, she feels alive these days, but she doesn't want to believe that it could be the same for Cobb, that they could feel so similar, deep down.

“In my dreams, we're still together,” he says, and it feels like the knife to the gut did. Cold and final.

He presses another button, and as they go down again, she realizes something.

“These aren't just dreams. These are memories. And you said never to use memories.”

“I know I did.” Cobb's face is closed off, unreadable, but she knows anyway. This is worse than she ever suspected.

“You're trying to keep her alive. You can't let her go.”

He shakes his head slightly, without looking at her. “You don't understand. These are moments that I regret, they're memories that I have to change.” It doesn't make sense to her, she can't wrap her head around it. “There's only one thing you need to understand about me.”

The elevator stops, and the grates open into a long hallway. Ari realizes that it must be Cobb's house. His and Mal's. She wants to know where Mal is, wants to see her and at the same time, can't imagine having to witness her here, in this house where she shared a life with _him_.

She doesn't have to.

“She's already gone.”

He talks about his children, almost as if to himself, and then, suddenly, another man stands in the room, waving around what looks like plane tickets. Cobb keeps talking, about how he should have called out to his children, but Ari has heard enough. With Cobb still turned away from her, still talking, she runs down the hallway and into the elevator. The sound of the grates clattering shut makes Cobb turn, but Ari has already pressed the lowest button, and the elevator is moving downwards.

  
  


The room she arrives in looks like a hotel room, impersonal but expensive. A lamp has been knocked over, an armchair as well. The elevator stops and as Ari steps out, she can see that the whole room is in a terrible mess. Not one piece of furniture seems to be in its proper place, the sheets have been pulled off the bed. There are flowers strewn over the floor, between shards of broken glass. She takes a few hesitant steps, still looking around, wondering what the hell happened here. With a quiet, almost musical sound, a wineglass breaks beneath her shoe. Mal looks at her from the couch. Has she been here all along? She must have been.

“What are you doing here?”

Her voice is cold. It makes Ari's hair stand on end. Maybe Mal doesn't remember her at all?

“My name is-” she starts, voice small and scared, but Mal interrupts.

“I know who you are. What are you doing here?”

She gets up slowly, and Ari can feel herself staring. Mal looks breathtakingly beautiful and dangerous all at once. She advances towards Ari, her eyes somehow darker than they usually are.

There's no love in them, nothing gentle, and no real recognition.

“I'm just trying to understand,” Ari says, feeling tears in her eyes.

“How could you understand?” Mal comes closer and closer, and there is something predatory about her. “Do you know what it is to be a lover? To be half of a whole?” The last words are spoken so close to her ear that she can feel Mal's breath in her hair.

Ari wants to say yes, wants it with all her heart, but what comes out is, “No.”

Mal stops circling her.

“I'll tell you a riddle. You're waiting for a train. A train that will take you far away. You know where you hope this train will take you, but you don't know for sure.”

Mal is moving towards the window, her hips swaying slightly in time with the curtains billowing in the wind from the open window. She doesn't stop looking at Ari, and Ari is frozen in place, unable to move.

“But it doesn't matter. How can it not matter to you where the train will take you?”

Ari can see Mal's hand closing around the stem of another broken wineglass, and everything inside of her screams to run, but still she doesn't, can't.

“Because you'll be together.” Cobb's voice breaks the spell, makes Ari turn around.

“How could you bring her here Dom?”

“What is this place?”

Cobb keeps his eyes fixed on Mal, but he answers Ariadne's question.

“This is a hotel suite where we used to spend our anniversary.”

“What happened here?” She can't keep the horror from her voice entirely.

Before Dom can say a word, Mal moves, almost _lunges_ at them, lightning quick. Ari and Dom run for the elevator, make it just in time. The grates shut right in front of Mal, who screams and throws herself against them. “You promised! You promised we'd be together!”

Dom shouts something back, pleading with her to stay, but Mal keeps rattling the grates and screaming at Dom about promises to grow old together. Ari cowers in the far corner of the elevator as it starts to move upwards, away from Mal, who is still in hysterics, not even forming words now, just yelling her fury up at them and keeping her dark, empty eyes fixed on them until they wake up.

They're both breathing hard and Ari wants nothing more than to go home, to curl up in her bed and cry, but she needs to clear some things up first, before she can let herself go.

“Do you think you can just build a prison of memories to lock her in? Do you really think that that's gonna contain her?” Cobb looks down, looks at his hands, doesn't speak for a second —

“It's time.” Saito's voice. “Maurice Fischer just died in Sydney.”

They'll have to move Tuesday, _tomorrow_ , and Ari still doesn't know all that she needs to know, isn't sure what she should believe, whether she can trust Mal, whether she even knows Mal. The plan is clear though, and for now, she doesn't know what to do except stick to it.

“Cobb, I'm coming with you.”

She thinks he'll refuse, but eventually, he just looks at Saito and says,” Get us another seat on the plane.”

Ari knows that Arthur won't sleep, that Cobb and Saito probably won't, either, but she has to, _has to_ talk to Mal before Inception can happen. She needs to know what the hell is going on.

  
  


Ari's fear when she goes to bed is sickening, like a physical illness. The thought that Mal might look at her the way she did in Dom's dream makes her shiver and shake. She drinks tea to calm herself, but it doesn't help much. The minutes are ticking away, though, and she needs to talk to Mal before the morning, so eventually she grits her teeth and lies down, hands clenched at her sides.

She's not sure what she expected, but it's not to open her eyes and be back in that hotel room.

Ari breathes in shakily and just like the last time, Mal on the couch turns around.

She doesn't say a word, and Ari is so scared that she can't speak, either, for a second. Then, voice wavering, she asks,” Mal?”

Mal smiles and nods and half opens her arms, but Ari just takes a careful couple of steps towards her before stopping again, making sure to this time to avoid the broken glass.

She wants to ask Mal about the dream, but she is scared of the answers, scared that Mal won't even remember it, scared that Mal _will_ remember it, so she just stands frozen, half looking at the woman in front of her, half at the curtains billowing in the wind.

Eventually, Mal breaks the silence.

“Ariadne?” she asks, in the same small voice that Ari had uttered her name in minutes ago. It makes Ari take a deep breath, focus on her properly.

“Ariadne, I'm sorry.”

Ari startles slightly, because Mal is not one to apologize. Express sympathy, yes, perhaps, but to apologize?

“Can you explain?”

She's still not coming closer, but it's easier to keep focused on Mal now.

Mal looks back with big eyes, clear and blue, not nearly as dark and dangerous as they had been in Cobb's dream. She opens her mouth, closes it. “I don't know where to begin.”

“How about you tell me whether you even recognized me in that dream?”

“Of course I did. I told you, that I knew who you are. I could never not know you, my angel.”

Ari nods shortly, not appeased, waiting for Mal to continue.

“You must understand. It was a memory. His memory. He dreamt me the way he remembers me, or wants to remember me.”

Ari makes a little choked sound. “He _wants_ to remember you like that?”

Mal laughs mirthlessly. “This is what he imagines to be love, _chérie_. To go crazy from it. That's what he wished for, I suppose, that I would answer his passion.”

“So … you were doing what he made you do?”

“In a way.” Mal sighs. “It was still me, in there, but it was me seen through his eyes. It was like I had his voice in me instead of my own. I knew you, or I knew that I knew you, at least. All I could see, though, was a little girl snooping.” Mal gets up, slowly, and walks towards Ari, hands in front of her as if she's showing that they're empty. Clearly trying to not look threatening.

“ _Chérie_. Do you truly not know what it is to be a lover? To be half of a whole? You are my second half. Without you, I could never be. Without you, all that would be left of me would be those ghost images in the head of a lonely man.” She's reached Ari, and as she takes her hands slowly, Ari lets her. “Do you believe me?” Mal whispers, that dark rich voice so familiar that all of a sudden, Ari feels tears in her eyes again. This time, they're tears of relief.

“Yes,” she chokes out, and immediately, Mal's arms wrap around her fully. She's half aware of being led to that sofa and sinking down, her face hidden in Mal's neck.

Mal strokes her hair and murmurs soothingly and Ariadne knows that she can never be safe anywhere else but with Mal. That they really are two halves of a whole.

She exhales shakily and sits up. “I need you to tell me what happened, in that hotel room.”

Mal closes her eyes, but doesn't say no. Ari waits, and eventually, Mal begins to speak.

“You know that I was only with Dom for a short time when I became pregnant, _oui_?

He proposed to me and I didn't know what to do but to say yes. My daughter was born, Philippa, and then my son, James. I loved them, but I couldn't love them as much as I hated the man I was married to. The only thing that Dom would always get me with was the dreams.”

She smiles bitterly when Ari lets out an involuntary sound.

“My father had experimented with dreams for a long time, you know. Dom was in on the project, he was so … _keen_. He took me down without my knowing the first time, said later that it was meant as a surprise. That's how he found out how my totem worked. His dreams were … they were different from our dreams, I never felt at home there. _Mais_ , they were exciting. He took dreaming so much further, so I followed him, again and again. Until, one day, he betrayed me, more than I ever would have imagined.”

“How?” Ari asks, not entirely sure whether she wants to hear it.

“He took me down further and further. Dreams within dreams. Has he told you about Limbo?”

“No … what's that?”

“It's the deepest place you could possibly reach within your own subconscious. It's hard to remember that you are dreaming, down there. Everything feels so natural. Time passes differently. I was missing you.”

“Oh!” Ari exclaims, finally understanding. “That was the time when you came to my dreams dozens of times in one night, always complaining that you never got to see me anymore.”

Mal nods again. “I had lost sight of what was real, but I knew that if I could still visit you, everything would be alright.

“Dom wanted to keep me down there. Not forever, maybe, I'm sure he wanted to return to our children eventually. We weren't under for a long time, _peut-être_ a week, not more. Down there, it was years and years. One day, I couldn't find my totem anymore. I knew that he had taken it. I looked and looked, until I found it. He'd left it in my old childhood home, a place I thought I had kept secret from him. I didn't take it with me, just made it spin and spin. This way, I could never forget I was still dreaming.”

Ari holds Mal's hand tighter and strokes the back of it soothingly. Their roles are strangely reversed, just for now, perhaps. “So, did you just wait until the time on the PASIV ran out?”

Mal shakes her head. “That was my plan, my last hope, but he gave in before that. I think he saw that it wouldn't work, that I would never be truly his. He missed our children, I can at least give him that. He made me lie down on train tracks.” Mal scoffs, sounding very much like herself again all of a sudden. “So dramatic. He told me that it didn't matter where that train would take us, that the only thing that mattered was that we would be together. No matter what I knew, no matter what he said, in that moment, just for a second, I thought that I would die.”

Ari remembers, remembers Mal coming to her, saying she thought she had died. She shivers again.

Mal continues, clearly needing to get it all out now.

“ I was never really sure where I was anymore. I still felt that I was dreaming. That's how he knows that Inception works, by the way. He witnessed me doing it to myself. I thought about ending it all, more than once. I had nothing to keep going for. The kids loved their grandparents, they would be fine. There was you. I couldn't risk leaving you, _petite._ I couldn't bear the thought.”

Ari swallows, uncomfortably. She knows what comes next, but she doesn't want to hear it.

“Mal, I'm sorry, it was all my fault.”

“ _Chut._ Don't speak of it. It is behind us. Important is that I decided to leave. I wanted to do it on the night of our anniversary, because I'd be far away from my children, my parents. I didn't want them to find a body. I prepared the suite.” Mal gestures to the broken glass on the floor, the overthrown furniture. “I wanted it to look like he had killed me. I wanted to punish him for what he had done to me. I wanted him away from our children.” Ari nods, because of course Mal would have thought it through, would have made sure that those she was potentially leaving would be safe.

“It worked, didn't it?”

“In a way, _oui_. He came back early, he saw the room, saw me on the ledge. He tried to talk me down. In his delusional mind, he seemed to think that I wanted him to follow me.”

“He didn't, though,” Ari says. “He didn't follow you.”

“No,” Mal agrees. “He didn't jump, he ran. If I could have kept him away, he could have kept his miserable life. Now, though, with the memories, summoning this ghost version of me, with his plans to return home … you understand that he has to die, don't you Ari? I know we talked about it before, but now you truly know, yes? He hurt you, too. He made you believe that I didn't love you, when there's nothing in the world that I love more.”

Ari feels tears rolling down her face. “I'll do it,” she whispers. “I'll do whatever you ask me to do.”

Mal smiles. “Of course you will. You, I can always count on.” She moves forward, her face so close to Ari's that she can feel her breath.

“Will I still see you?” Ari asks. “When he is dead, will you still be there?”

Mal laughs. “My silly darling. When he is dead, won't you join me? Won't you come down and live with me forever and ever?”

Ari looks at Mal, at the woman she loves, the only person in the world who matters. There can only be one answer. “Yes.”

 

  
  


Meeting the others at the airport feels … unreal.

Ari can see her own tenseness mirrored on their faces, although she doubts that they're tense for the same reason.

She gets on the plane early, sits in her seat crosslegged and reads through her designs one more time, even though she knows that she's got them memorised. She watches Eames lift the wallet off Fischer and marvels at his calm, at how easy he makes it seem. Fischer has an air of vulnerability around him that couldn't be conveyed by pictures, that surprises her. How can you be heir to an empire like his father's, and still look so … human? She's absurdly glad that they'll make him break it up, break up that responsibility and create something for himself. She shakes her head. _Focus._

Cobb's plan seems to work. The beginning at least is flawless, giving Fischer back the passport, having him drink the spiked water. Ariadne has no idea what Yusuf put in there, but just a tiny sip has Fischer out cold within minutes.

Ari watches the flight attendant's finger descend on the button and takes a deep breath. _This is it._

  
  


It's raining when they arrive in the dream, and Ari is soaking wet before Cobb pulls up and throws the door open for her. She gets in, sits down and – Ari is thrown backwards and gasps as a train, a fucking _train_ hits their car. It's in the middle of the street and still going, ripping up the street in its wake, pushing cars aside. They watch, completely stumped. “This wasn't in the design.”

Cobb doesn't say anything in return, just stares out his window at the still moving train.

“Cobb?”

Then, he seems to get back to himself, puts the car in reverse. Ari suddenly remembers Mal telling her about how Cobb got them out of Limbo... _Could that train be...?_

When they arrive at the place she designed to interrogate Fischer, she sees that the car the others stole looks almost as bad as theirs. Once they're inside, there's no time to ask, Cobb is running around frantically and Saito – Saito is bleeding. Ari has never seen a bullet wound before, but it really can't be anything else.

“We were blocked by a freight train,” Cobb just says to Arthur, who looks confused.

“Why would you put a freight train in the middle of an intersection?” He's talking to her, Ari realizes.

“Well, I didn't,” she replies, a little indignant and still a little shaken. Before there can be more questions, Cobb is yelling at Arthur, defensive and trying to shift the focus off his own fuck-up, Ari thinks disgustedly.

“...these were not normal projections, they were trained, for God's sake!”

“How could they be trained?” Ari feels more and more that there are a lot of things still that no one has thought to tell her about that seem pretty damn noteworthy.

Arthur explains, like he always does, has time for her questions even now, and Ari appreciates that, but Cobb is still raging. He's screaming about responsibility and not being prepared. Ari only half listens because with Cobb, it's the same old really, he's mostly projecting his failures onto others.

Then Eames steps up to wake Saito, and Cobb pushes him out of the way, yelling again, this time about how when they die, they … won't wake up? Wait a second.

“We're too heavily sedated to wake up that way,” says Yusuf, and Ari slowly begins to understand what that means. Dying in a dream sucked, the one time that happened to her, but it was still an easy way out, a kind of safety net. She always planned on succeeding, for Mal, for her revenge and their life together, after that, but now … now she has to, has to come through this.

“So what happens when we die?”

Ari has never heard Eames sound so dangerous.

“We drop into Limbo.”

“Limbo?” Ari asks, full of terror, because she'd heard that word last night. “What's down there?”

“Nothing is down there.” She's never seen Arthur this grim, either. It scares her.

“How long can we be stuck there?” It's a terrifying concept, living in the space where Cobb trapped Mal, and her fear only grows when she hears Yusuf say that they might never get out, should they go there. She's so close, this can't be happening.

The team is still fighting, and when Arthur drops Mal's name, Ari turns around quickly to see what little she can do for Saito. She can't trust herself to pretend not to know anything, not right now.

  
  


After Fischer's interrogation, Cobb comes back to join her. He almost seems to trust her, after all she's seen, and Ari can hardly believe how stupid and blind he is. It's not like she won't use it to her advantage, though.

“When were you in Limbo?” When he doesn't answer, she presses on, “You might have the rest of the team convinced to carry on with this job, but they don't know the truth.”

“Truth? What truth?”

Ari can hardly believe his nerve.

“The truth that, at any minute, you might bring a freight train through the wall. The truth that Mal” — and oh, does it hurt to say her name to him — “is bursting through your subconscious.”

She wasn't sure that it would work, but it does. He inhales, and then he actually starts telling her the story. Or, well, his version of it.

“Eventually, it just became impossible for me to live like that.”

“And what about for her?” Ari asks, when all she wants to do is scream _liar_.

  She manages, though, just barely, to stay calm as she listens to his twisted tale, to him making it sound like Mal wanted to forget her own world. It makes Ari feels sick and fascinated at the same time, at how well he's lying to himself, how neatly he changed little details of the story so that it fits in his mind.

“I left my children behind and I've been trying to buy my way back ever since.”

Ari thinks quickly. After hearing what she heard, she's more determined than ever to make Cobb pay, and for that, he needs to make it, make it through.

“Your guilt defines her. It's what powers her. But you are not responsible for the idea that destroyed her. And if we are gonna succeed in this, you have to forgive yourself, and you're gonna have to confront her.” Anything to make him go on. “But you don't have to do that alone,” Ari adds, because she can't stand the thought of him being alone with her, controlling her the way he did I that other dream without anyone watching. By pretending to do it for the team, she can keep an eye on him.

  
  


They get into the van, Fischer sedated in the back, and Yusuf drives them out again.

Going down into the hotel is a relief, because the danger just doesn't feel as real in here, where it looks so clean and … proper, with people in suits walking by and light pouring in through the huge windows. Ariadne sits with Arthur, observing Cobb, and he explains the whole 'Mr Charles' thing to her. She's going to miss him, she thinks absently. No wonder Mal was fond of him. When Cobb tells Fischer that they're in a dream, everyone looks at them – of course, Arthur is the dreamer.

“Quick, give me a kiss,” he says, and before she can do anything, say anything, he's leaned in, a dry brush of lips on lips. It's clearly a move he’s used before, and Ari can't help but wonder whether Eames might have invented it, It probably works better when Arthur actually wants to kiss the person, she reflects, since this didn't change anything – the projections are still staring.

“Yeah, it was worth a shot,” Arthur says next to her, so drily that she smiles a little. “We should probably get out of here.”

She's supposed to help Arthur prep the hotel room, but she ends up just watching him, asking questions as he climbs on furniture, calm and focused the entire time. It sets her at ease a little. She's not comfortable with not being able to have an eye on Cobb. He arrives soon enough though, Fischer in tow, and if Ari didn't have so many problems herself, she'd feel sorry for him. Fischer looks terrible, all shaken, but when this is over, he'll probably be better off than before, she reminds herself. Also, as hard as it is to watch him realize Browning's betrayal, Ariadne has to admit that the plan is kind of genius. Having Fischer help them break into his own subconscious, willingly give up information … it does remind her a bit of something Mal might do, but that thought doesn't help, not now. Who's to say that it wasn't her who thought a scheme like this up originally, after all? Ari can't ponder on this, she can just ask Mal. _After._

  
  


The next level is cold. Of course Ari knew it would be, she built it, after all, but that thought doesn't do much to warm her. She's never liked snow, always preferred green grass and a gentle breeze.

She looks around and sees everyone looking down at the fort in concentration. Right. She hopes Arthur is ok up in the hotel. And Yusuf in that van. _God_.

She has no idea what Cobb will come up with, down in that fort. She just knows it will have something to do with Mal, and it will be painful. Most likely literally. She steels herself.

They ski down the mountain, and Ari feels unsure on her skis. Maybe she's just imagining it, but she thinks she can feel Yusuf's driving even down here.

Cobb is giving instructions ahead, saying something about he can't know the layout.

_At least he still understands that_ , Ari thinks, scoffing inwardly.

The question still remains as to who guides Fischer in.

“I designed the place,” Ari offers, because yeah, she planned to stick to Cobb, but right now, she just wants this to be over.

“No,” Cobb says, glancing at her. “You're with me.”

  
  


They start making their way to the fortress, each of them targeting a different part. Saito and Fischer have soon melted in with the white around them. The wind tugs on Ari's clothes and howls around the mountains. It almost sounds like... _oh shit._

“Yusuf's ten seconds from the jump,” Cobb says next to her, and Ari closes her eyes. “Which gives Arthur three minutes. Which gives us what?”

“Sixty minutes,” Ari replies.

“Can they make that route in under an hour?”

The honest answer would be no, definitely not.

“They still have to climb down to the middle terrace.”

“Well, then they need a new route, a more direct route.”

_Really, Cobb?_

“It's designed as a labyrinth.” _A labyrinth that you're not supposed to know the way through._

“There must be access routes that cut through the maze. Did Eames add any features?”

Dammit, why can't Cobb just be as stupid as he looks all the time?

Ariadne stalls. “I don't think I should tell you. If Mal finds out...”

“We don't have time for this, did he add anything?”

If she could see another way that they could make it, a way without telling Cobb, she would use it, but she can't see one.

“He added an air-duct system that can cut through the maze.”

“Good, explain it to them.”

Ari turns away from Cobb and does just that, relieved that she doesn't have to look at him for a couple minutes. The deeper they go into the dreams, the more she feels the resentment pool in her stomach. Here, it's so strong that she thinks they're lucky she learned to control her emotions in dreams years ago. If she was really as inexperienced as she pretended to be, they'd be dealing with a full-blown thunderstorm on top of everything else. Best case scenario.

In fact, she feels so full of hatred that, when the avalanche hits, she does think it's her fault for a second. Then she gets it. _The kick._

She can hear Eames shouting, “Cobb! Cobb, did we miss it?”

“Yeah, we missed it.”

Ari feels panic flood her, so acutely that she can't breathe because no, she can't be trapped here, with Cobb, without Mal, she _can't_.

Too late, she realizes that Cobb is still talking.

“...the next kick. When the van hits the water.”

She does the math in her head. 20 minutes. It's a not much, but a whole lot better than nothing.

The next few minutes are frantically running through the snow, with Cobb shooting anyone who gets in their way. At least he's good for something.

They make it into the tower, and a thought hits Ari, all of a sudden.

“Are those projections his subconscious?”

“Yes,” Cobb says simply, shooting another.

“Are you destroying parts of his mind?”

“No, they're just projections.”

Ari is pretty sure that he hasn't got what she's asking at all, but then someone shoots at them and Cobb retaliates and she just can't worry about it anymore.

  
  


Fischer has reached the strong room, finally, but before she can get excited about that, there are feet appearing in the air behind Fischer. Someone is lowering themselves into that room. _No._

Cobb next to her is still aiming, he hasn't understood yet, and Ari just wants to close her eyes and hope that he can do it, that it'll happen quickly and that she doesn't have to watch. She's not sure that she can go on if she sees Mal dropping dead to the floor. She's not sure what it will mean. All she can do is not look and _hope_.

Cobb doesn't shoot.

“Cobb, no, she is not real.” The words are like glass in her mouth, because what if this _will_ kill Mal, what if there's too much of the real her in that hateful version that Cobb conjured up to survive a gun shot?

Cobb does nothing to help her doubts.

“How do you know that?”

“She's just a projection. Fischer. Fischer is real.”

And still, Cobb isn't shooting, just staring with his rifle lowered and Ari feels like she's ripping apart as she sees Fischer turn around as if in slow motion and Mal shooting him. Right in the chest.

As he starts falling, a second shot rips through the air and Mal is falling backwards as well, propelled by the bullet next to her shoulder.

“Eames,” Ari hears herself shout, “Eames, get to the antechamber now!” Then her voice cracks and she wants to slide to the floor, but Cobb has already grabbed her hand.

The reach the antechamber as Eames pulls out the defibrillator, and fuck, Ari wasn't planning on using it when she built this into the design.

“What happened,” Eames asks.

“Mal killed Fischer,” Ari says, because that's true, and that's what counts right now because they still need to get out of here, she still needs to make it, because if she doesn't, then it's certain that she'll never see Mal again.

“I couldn't shoot her,” Cobb says dumbly, but he did, he _did._

“His mind will be trapped down there. It's all over.”

_No._

“So that's it then? We failed?” Eames' voice seems to come from very far away, because they can't have failed, there must be a way. There _is_ a way.

She doesn't realize she's said it out loud until she sees Eames and Cobb looking at her.

“We just have to follow Fischer down there.”

“Not enough time.”

“No, but there will be enough time down there. And we will find him.” _And her, and her, she'll be there, she will._

“As soon as Arthur's music kicks in, just use the defibrillator to revive him. We'll give him his own kick, down below.”

They just stare at her for another few seconds.

“Look, you get him in there. As soon as the music ends, you blow up the hospital and we all ride the kick back up the layers.”

Silence. Then - “It's worth a shot.” Eames keeps talking, but Ari's relief is too powerful to listen to him. _Another chance._

“Saito will never make it, will he?”

Is he serious?

“Cobb, come on, we've gotta try this.”

“Go for it.” At least she can count on Eames.

“She's right. She's right. Come on. Let's go.”

“Can I trust you to do what needs to happen down there?” This is important.

“I mean, Mal's gonna be down there.” _Please, please let her be down there._

“I know where to find her. She's gonna have Fischer.”

“How do you know?”

“Because she wants me to come after him. She wants me back down there with her.”

In any other situation, Ari would have had a hard time not to scoff out loud, but right now, there are more important things, much more important things than her disdain for Cobb's delusions.

As long as his mind draws her, they'll be fine.

 

  
  


The water is cold, and somehow saltier than Ari expected. As Cobb helps her up, she looks around and feels nothing but a sort of horrified pity.

“This is your world?”

“It was. And this is where she'll be.”

The street around them are empty, the buildings old and broken. Even if they were new, they'd all look the same though. Ari thinks about the meadow, about little cobbled streets and houses painted sky blue, and can't believe that Mal really built any of this.

Once they start getting into the sections that Cobb calls the 'memories', Ari pays closer attention. This is Mal's life, her other one, the one without Ariadne. It's a strange feeling. She was curious, before, but now that she's here, she doesn't want to see. She can't help but look around a little though, and her eyes fall on something that does look like Mal's, in between all the steel and concrete.

“What's that?”

“That's the house Mal grew up in.”

“Will she be in there?”

“No. Come on.”

  
  


As they enter the house, Cobb and Mal's house, the one Ari has seen before, she feels a strange sense of foreboding. Cobb is talking away about ideas and viruses, but he seems to sense it as well, because he lifts his gun.

  
  


“The smallest idea, such as: 'Your world is not real.'”

It's Mal, of course it's Mal, Ari can't believe she ever doubted. For a split second, she wants to run at Mal, hug her, hold her and never let her go, but then she remembers that it isn't over.

“A simple little thing that changes everything. So certain of your world. Of what's real. Do you think he is?”

Ari stops dead. Why is Mal talking to her? This is not how it's supposed to be. How can she be sure whether now this is her Mal, or Cobb's?

“Or do you think he's as lost as I was?”

For Mal's eyes bore into hers, dark stormy blue, but before Ari can decide what to say, Cobb speaks.

“I know what's real Mal.”

“No creeping doubts? Not feeling persecuted, Dom? Chased around the globe by anonymous corporations and police forces, the way the projections persecute the dreamer?”

For one second, Ari thinks it might be the Mal she knows, after all, that Mal might have thrown Cobb off, but then her hands come up to touch his face.

“Admit it. You don't believe in one reality anymore. So choose. Choose to be here. Choose me.”

Ari can't move, can't speak. It's just like it was in Cobb's dream, even though she knows that this isn't real. Right?

It's Cobb who breaks the spell. “I have to get back to our children because you left them. Because you left us.”

“You're wrong,” Mal says, and her voice doesn't sound like her voice at all, suddenly.

“I'm not wrong,” Cobb insists. Ari can't help but be at least a little impressed that he's standing his ground.

Then, Mal brings up their children, whom Ari hadn't noticed before. Now she sees that they're playing on the floor. She looks away quickly, feeling a knot in her gut. These children are undeniable proof that there is something that connects Cobb to Mal, and if he chooses her and them now, Ariadne knows that she'll never see Mal again. Cobb will keep her here forever.

“...I'm gonna see them up above, Mal.”

It sounds like it takes an effort to say the words, but he does say them. It has to be enough.

Ari tunes them out, just for a second, just to get a grip on herself again.

“...That the idea that caused you to question your reality came from me.”

No, wait a second. That isn't true. Ari knows that isn't true. Mal told her so.

Mal, though, just looks at Cobb with big eyes.

“You planted the idea in my mind?”

Ari feels like she'll panic any second. “What is she talking about?”

“The reason I knew inception was possible was because I did it to her first. I did it to my own wife.”

Ari wants to scream, wants to call him out on his lie, wants Mal to protest, but Mal is silent, and all Ari can whisper is, “Why?”

Cobb tells her, tells her almost exactly what Mal told her, only that the roles are reversed.

Ari remembers that she knew the truth, but she can't recall that feeling of certainty anymore. Cobb's voice seems to smother it, smother her knowledge and her trust.

“I was trying to save you,” Cobb is saying, eyes on Mal, full of tears.

“You betrayed me,” Mal says and suddenly, Ari knows again. Cobb betrayed Mal. No matter how, it's a fact that he did, she remembers that, and Mal just said it, and that is the truth she can hold onto, the truth that will save her from losing herself down here.

“Cobb, we need to get Fischer!”

Mal is shaking her head. “You can't have him.”

“If I stay here, will you let him go?” Cobb looks dead serious.

Ari feels her chin drop. “What are you talking about?”

Cobb doesn't even look at her, just keeps his eyes fixed on Mal, who nods slowly.

“Fischer's on the porch.”

“Go check he's alive, Ariadne.”

“Cobb, you can't do this.” _She's mine, she's mine, we're supposed to be together._

“Go check he's alive right now. Do it.”

She doesn't know what else to do, so she runs outside.

“He's here, and it's time, but you have to come now!”

“You take Fischer with you, all right?”

“You can't stay here to be with her!” Ari wants to drop Fischer, to run back inside, to kill Cobb here and now, but she knows that this Mal wouldn't be able to help her, that this Mal would be forced to protect him.

“I'm not. Saito's dead by now.”

Ari doesn't know what he's talking about, for a split second, then she remembers.

“That means he's down here somewhere,” Cobb continues. “That means I have to find him.

“I can't stay with her anymore because she doesn't exist.”

Ari wants to cry, to dance, to laugh and scream all at once. It worked. It worked. He doesn't believe in her anymore. He can't control something he doesn't believe in.

Ari turns to Fischer instead, because they're still not out of here.

Then she hears the knife whip through the air and knows that she'll have to be the one. To truly free Mal from this, she needs to get her out of here as well. She draws the gun, and fires. Then, without missing a beat, she kicks Fischer off the porch. There isn't much time left. She points the gun at Cobb, but he shakes his head.

The sky that was cackling with lightning moments ago is rolling with thunder now, and Ari can barely hold on to the porch anymore.

“That's the kick Ariadne,” Cobb calls, Mal still cradled in his arms, but seeing that can't hurt Ari, not anymore. “You have to go now!”

“Don't lose yourself! Find Saito and bring him back!”

“I will!”

_It's worked_ , Ari thinks. Then, she lets go and falls.

 

  
  


Waking up through the different layers is the strangest feeling, like falling, but backwards, no, upwards. Actually, it's more like Ari imagines flying might feel like.

She emerges from the water on the first level of the dream gasping, with Arthur close behind.

“What happened?” he asks before he's got both feet back on dry land. Or well, wet rocks. Whatever.

“Cobb stayed,” she says.

“With Mal?”

Ari shakes her head. “No, to find Saito.”

“He'll be lost,” Arthur says and he sounds certain, final, but Ari knows better.

“No, he'll be all right.”

Arthur looks at her, water dripping from his hair, and Ari can see the hope in his eyes.

They have to wait for the flight attendant to wake them up, which means an entire night on the first level. Luckily, Fischer's projections aren't hostile anymore now that he's helped them break into his mind.

In the morning they go, one after the other, with Fischer waking up last. He's quite a bit behind them to make sure that he'll have time to forget their faces, at least a little bit. Cobb and Saito are both still asleep when Ari wakes up with a sudden jolt from being flipped into a lying position. She didn't expect anything else, though. Arthur looks tight lipped and worried and so does Yusuf (although probably more for fear that he won't get paid after all). Eames’ face gives nothing away, but Ari thinks that she saw him glancing at Arthur just as she opened her eyes. She rights her seat and drinks some water, trying not to think about all that might happen down in Limbo. She knows that Cobb got over himself, that he gave his dream Mal up. He'll do anything to return to his children now. She does wonder whether Saito will still remember anything when he returns. If he doesn't, Cobb will go to prison instead of die, but really, that's all the same to Ari.

She catches Fischer's eye and smiles politely. He's a bit flushed and she can only imagine what it must be like to wake up on a plane after having dreamt about all the people next to you. He looks happier, though, there's some tightness gone from his shoulders. As he sinks back into his seat and folds his hands meditatively, she's sure that the inception has worked. It's down to waiting now.

Ari can see the hope drain from Arthur's eyes with every minute that passes, can see Yusuf biting his nails and Eames actually starting to shift in his seat a little, but she doesn't doubt Cobb until the pilot announces that they're one hour from Los Angeles. _What is taking him so long?_

There it is again, the fear that he might after all not have been strong enough, that he might have decided to stay down there – to hold Mal captive forever.

Then, finally, when the flight attendant starts to give out hot towels, Cobb opens his eyes.

It's down to Saito, then, how Ari will proceed. He's got his eyes open, too, but looks desorientated, confused. _I might not have to kill Cobb, after all,_ Ari thinks, but before she's quite finished the thought, Saito rights himself and grabs for the satellite phone.

  
  


Ari stays close behind Cobb in the airport, gets into the passport line next to him and smiles as she hears the “Welcome home, Mr Cobb.”

She knows that someone will probably be there to pick Cobb up. Miles, maybe, since the semester is over and he'll be back in America. She needs to get him away first.

“Hey, Cobb,” she says and comes to stand next to him at the baggage claim.

“I need to talk to you.”

He smiles at her, open and happy and relieved, and if it were anyone else, she might be moved, but as it is, she couldn't care less. She smiles back, though, and takes his hand, the one that isn’t still clutching the PASIV case like a life line.

“Come on, let's get out of here.” Cobb looks at her strangely.

“I...I appreciate the offer, Ariadne, but I need to get to my children. I've waited so long.”

This is the hardest part, he needs to come with her. She's talked about it with Mal, and they completely agreed that it would be too cruel to let the children see him, and then take him away again. It needs to be now.

“Trust me,” she says, still forcing herself to smile. “Miles prepared it, he texted me when you told him that you'd probably be home soon. He was my professor, remember?” She laughs as if Cobb is just being slow. “Come on, your kids are waiting. It's supposed to be a big surprise, but I imagine that Miles won't take too kindly to waiting. They don't know you've made it, after all.”

She tugs on Cobb’s hand again and _yes,_ it works. She can't quite believe her luck, but then again, he's probably so giddy and full of adrenaline that he'd believe just about anything right now as long as it has to do with his children. Ari leads him outside quickly, making sure that they stay partially hidden from sight behind a broad-backed man, his wife and their five kids.

She thinks she sees Miles and steers them in the other direction and to the parking lot.

“He ordered a car for us,” she tells Cobb, even though of course Miles did nothing of the sort. She herself ordered that car, in the morning, right before the flight left.

“That wouldn't have been necessary,” Cobb says with a little shake of his head, but Ari just laughs again and makes him get in. The ride isn't long, but it feels like the longest in Ari's whole life. She's a good driver, so it doesn't matter too much that her attention isn't as fixed on the road as it should be.

“Where the hell are we going?” Cobb asks, just as Ari pulls into the parking lot of a hotel.

“A hotel?” Cobb asks, sounding very dubious. Ari has to admit that it's not the greatest of plans, but she and Mal didn't have a lot of time to think on it, and they concentrated on getting Cobb away from people he knows. On the other hand, it doesn't really matter all that much, because she's got him here now, and everything else will follow. It would be better if he came up into the room of course, but even if he doesn't...

“Come _on_ , they're all waiting for us!” Ari says, taking his hand again and holding on tightly although it's sweaty and all kinds of disgusting.

They arrive at the reception and Ari smiles sweetly. “The name is Cobb,” she tells the receptionist, because really, she doesn't want to make it too hard for Miles to find him, in the end.

They get handed a key and get into the elevator. Ari is clutching her bag and the PASIV case that she snatched from the car before Cobb could pick it up again, or forget it in there. Cobb is just bouncing on the balls of his feet nervously. The elevator doors open and Ari leads the way to the room. “They might not be here yet,” she explains before putting the key into the lock.

“I texted Miles right before we left the airport, of course he didn't want to excite the kids if you were just going to end up in prison after all, right?”

She laughs again and opens the door. The room is, of course, empty. She marches inside and Cobb follows her, closing the door behind him. _Good._

Ari can feel her heart hammering against her rib cage, feels like it should be visible through her top. She reaches around Cobb and locks the door.

“Ariadne, what the hell?” he starts, but stops when she pulls the knife from her bag.

“Ariadne?” he says again, weakly, confused.

“I have a message for you,” Ari says. She's all calm now. Not much longer, and she'll be with Mal. Only a little further. “A message from Mal.”

“Mal?” Cobb asks, but she just continues.

“From Mal and me, really.” She grips the knife more tightly. “She was never yours. She was always mine, and I was hers. She despised you. And by trapping her down there, you signed your own death sentence.”

The words are dramatic, but Ari likes how they sound anyway, likes how easily they pour from her lips. “I don't understand,” Cobb says helplessly, too shocked to even look afraid.

He's not even trying to run, just stands in place, frozen and disbelieving. It's almost too easy.

“We don't care,” Ari says, stepping closer. “Don't you get it? You don't matter. You've never mattered. You'll be forgotten by everyone. Your children might remember you for a while, but they're young. You will fade until there's nothing left of you. As it should be.”

Cobb opens his mouth to reply, as if he thinks that maybe if they keep talking, she'll change her mind, but before he can say anything, Ari raises the knife and stabs him. It's not as easy as movies make it look, as Mal made it look, but Mal warned her about it, told her what she'd feel and that she'd just need to push harder, so Ari does. Cobb is gasping wetly and she can feel a fine spray of blood on her face, then he sinks to the ground, her knife sticking out of his chest, buried to the hilt.

Ari waits for a minute or two, still feeling calm, collected. Cobb's eyes are empty and that's as it should be. When she's sure that he really is dead, that there is none of his miserable life left in him, she steps over the body and opens the PASIV case that's lying on the bed.

Yusuf's specially mixed Somnacin is still inside, as well as a syringe with extra sedative. She hooks herself up as she's done many times before now, then lies back on the bed. She empties the entire syringe into her arm just before she presses the button. She expected the first level to be empty, but her subconscious has had other plans. She 's standing in her childhood bedroom and the sky outside is dark. Clearly, it's bedtime. She smiles and lies down on top of the covers. There's something beneath her pillow. It's a gun, small and elegant. It looks like something Mal would carry around. A welcome home gift, of sorts. Ari closes her eyes and holds the gun against her head, feels the cool metal caress her skin. Then, she pulls the trigger.

  
  


She's falling and falling and eventually, warm arms catch her. The air smells like spring and grass. Ari opens her eyes to their meadow, and to Mal's face, glowing with pride.

“ _Chérie,_ you did it,” she whispers into Ari's hair, still holding her tightly. “Now, we'll be together always.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
